Iraq: Women and Religious Minorities

Lord Lamont of Lerwick: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What representations they are making to the Government of Iraq about the position of women and Christians in Iraq since the coalition invasion of 2003.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we continue to discuss with the Iraqi Government human rights issues, including the protection of women's interests and those of religious minorities.
	We have made it clear to the Iraqi Government that the constitution should protect the rights of women and religious minorities. Such provisions have been included in the constitution. We will work with the Iraqis to ensure that these protections are respected. There are 86 women in the Iraq National Assembly, equivalent to 31 per cent of its total membership.

Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but is not the reality of liberated Iraq that 300,000 Christians have fled from their homes for fear of them being torched; that women in Baghdad cannot get jobs unless they agree to cover their heads; that women in Basra have had acid thrown at them by militia for wearing jeans; and that some of the so-called "women's representatives" in the National Assembly, to whom the Minister referred, support and have advocated the rights of husbands to beat their wives? Is not the reality that we have exchanged an evil dictatorship for a monstrous tyranny of mullahs over women and other minorities?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, perhaps I may answer that in a moment, but before doing so I want to express the regret of the Government and, I am sure, that of the House at the death at the weekend of a soldier from the 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The soldier's name will be released at 6 pm. I am not in a position to release it now, but I wanted to pay tribute to the courage, as ever, of members of our forces.
	As there is no other opportunity today, perhaps I may also pay tribute to PC Sharon Beshenivsky and PC Teresa Milburn for their courage and dedication and for the loss of Sharon Beshenivsky's life. I apologise for the length of my answer, but this is a matter that should not go unmarked.
	Obviously, there are serious problems in the way in which human rights are treated in Iraq. It is at the end of a period of dictatorship and abuse of human rights that has lasted for decades. However, the constitution provides for significant possibilities of change. They include equal opportunities guaranteed for all Iraqis—men and women; the prohibition of tribal customs, which are an assault on the rights of women in particular; and domestic violence, to which there have been references. I do not want to suggest that these constitutional provisions have overcome a very difficult and gloomy history, but they are steps in the right direction and I believe that they will result in the sorts of changes that I know the noble Lord plainly seeks, as I do.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, we on this side associate ourselves fully with the tributes that the Minister paid, both on the sad occasion of the death of yet another brave solder in Iraq and on the appalling murder of PC Beshenivsky in Bradford. Both are tragedies and, indeed, lessons that make us pause to think about how we should advance.
	As to the Question, does not the new constitution, which has, after all, been agreed and takes us forward to elections in Iraq, contain unfavourable aspects in relation to the position of women? If each sect is allowed to develop its own family courts, will that not provide an open door for the return of Islamic and Sharia law, as applied in their most unfavourable form against women? While I am glad to hear that we are working with the Iraqis on these matters, can the Minister assure us that we will support any attempts after the next election in Iraq to amend the constitution to ensure that women's rights really are fully secured and not undermined by mediaeval and totally inadequate rules governing the position of women?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it is widely known that negotiations on the formulation of the constitution tried to bring together a balance between religious freedoms for particular groups and their traditions, and the protection of individual rights. The reality is that that balance is unlikely to be in the right place at present. Further discussions will be necessary, as the noble Lord said. The difficulty with respecting religious freedoms along with human rights is that there are such clashes in the world. It is important to try to make progress, rather than believe that we are at a settled point.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, while recognising that Shi'ites are the majority in Iraq and Sunnis are the vast majority in the Islamic world, is there any evidence that either Sunnis or Shi'ites are discriminating against Christians and women to a greater extent than the other?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am not aware of any data that show differential levels of discrimination. I will certainly try to ensure that, if there are such data, they are laid before the House.

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, we on these Benches associate ourselves with the tributes that have been made.
	Is the Minister aware that St George's Memorial Church in Baghdad is under 24-hour armed guard, and is now the only safe meeting place for Christians of all denominations in the city? Is he also aware that the cathedral's whole lay leadership team has been missing for four weeks, presumed kidnapped or killed?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I fear that there are a number of places in Baghdad under 24-hour armed guard. At a recent meeting between our embassy and the Apostolic Nuncio in Baghdad, he confirmed that he did not feel that attacks on Christians were on the increase. We try to maintain close links with religious and ethnic communities in Iraq, and have good relations on the ground with Christian leaders such as Archbishop Kassab in Basra. We meet them and try to take account of their concerns. Whatever the improvements, however, it is not, as yet, a safe environment for Christians and many other parts of the Iraqi community.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, we on these Benches express our deep sympathy with the family of the soldier who has sadly lost his life in Basra, and with the families of the two brave and gallant women police constables who were shot in Bradford.
	The Minister answered the previous question by saying that he had no evidence of discrimination. I press him further. Are steps taken to ensure that in the recruitment and—especially—the training of police services in Iraq, young men and women are told about the dangers of discrimination, particularly sectarian and gender discrimination? It looks a little as though the police forces have, to say the least, been somewhat infiltrated by powerful sectarian groups.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, in the training missions which we operate with the police forces being recruited—we, of course, are principally concerned with recruitment in the south of the country—we make every provision to ensure that there is anti-discrimination training. It may well take some time for those lessons to take root. There has been a particular effort, however, to recruit women into the police force, including specialist women and those who can deal with the juvenile detention unit in Basra. I chart not success or complacency, but the beginning of a long process in which those ingredients must be focal.

Overseas Students

Lord Dearing: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether an increasing number of overseas students coming to the United Kingdom will benefit higher education and the national economy.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, yes. UK higher education institutions have had great success in recruiting overseas students. Numbers increased by over 50 per cent between 2001 and 2004. Overseas students bring many benefits. They provide an international perspective to higher education, foster lasting contacts and understanding between the UK and other countries, support the UK's research base and are an important source of income to institutions through tuition fees. The overall benefit to the economy is estimated at £3 billion a year.

Lord Dearing: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer. In the light of his recognition of the value of these overseas students—to the British economy, to higher education and to our people—do the Government have firm plans to launch a second instalment of the Prime Minister's 1999 initiative to increase the number of overseas students? Can he, in that context, assure the House that it will be an integrated government policy in which the British Council is properly funded to discharge its responsibilities?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the Prime Minister's initiative has been a great success, as the noble Lord rightly says. It set a target of increasing international student recruitment by 50,000; the out-turn was in fact 88,000, which has been a huge benefit to our universities and to the nation at large. My noble friend Lord Kinnock has been in discussion with my honourable friend the Minister for the Universities and with the Prime Minister on a second phase of his initiative. We are keen to take that idea forward and will of course see that the British Council has all the support necessary to do so when we have taken those decisions.

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe: My Lords, I declare an interest as chief executive of Universities UK. In making that welcome commitment to the Prime Minister's initiative, can the Minister provide a clear funding commitment to ensure the success of the successor scheme? Can he also indicate whether not only the DfES but also the Department for Trade and Industry and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office might make their contributions, given the enormous contribution that international students make to diplomacy, to trade and to the economy more generally?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, we will seek to ensure that the scheme, if extended, is properly funded and that other departments are fully engaged. As my noble friend will know, the joint education task force has been looking at some difficult issues that we have had to face regarding international student recruitment. These issues, in respect of visas and other matters, are the subject of interdepartmental conversations.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords—

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: My Lords—

Lord Rooker: My Lords, there is plenty of time for both noble Baronesses.

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: My Lords, the Minister mentioned the £3 billion that was being brought in by overseas students. Can he give the cost of educating these students?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot give a detailed figure, but I will write to the noble Baroness. Universities do of course recoup the cost of educating these students from the fees that they charge, which are an important source of income to them.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, the Minister has assured the House that the Government welcome extra overseas students. Can he assure us that the Home Office will also make them welcome? In particular, can he justify the increase in cost of the renewal of student visas? The Home Office is charging £250, or £500 if students apply in person. Since the Foreign Office, which does all the initial work, charges only £85 for the initial visa application, surely the Government should, under their best value rules, be contracting out this particular function to the Foreign Office?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the noble Baroness may give the Foreign Office ideas about the kind of fees that it could ask for in due course. The cost analysis that has been done is robust. Indeed, we reduced the cost of the fees for leave to remain, because of concerns in the university sector, to £250 for the postal application service. We believe that those fees are justified. However, we have given an undertaking that any further changes in the fees will be subject to full consultation with the sector. That is why we set up the joint education task force, on which the Home Office is represented. Indeed, my honourable friend the Minister for Immigration had a highly productive meeting with the task force last month.

Lord Quirk: My Lords—

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard: My Lords—

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords—

Noble Lords: Cross Benches.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross-Benchers, but it is not for me to choose which one.

Lord Quirk: My Lords, given the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, how concerned are Her Majesty's Government about our apparent loss in market share in the recruitment of overseas students, that seven OECD countries are recruiting such students more rapidly than we are, and that, even in Europe, France and Germany now have almost as many such students as we have, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago? Apart from his welcome response to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, what do the Government propose to do to restart the impetus that we had in this country?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I do not believe that the impetus has flagged. We have a very impressive record over the past five years of increasing the number of overseas students. The numbers were up by 57 per cent in the three years between 2001 and 2004, and the latest figures for undergraduate applications for this year show a further increase of nearly 1 per cent for 2005–06. However, we are in no way complacent, which is why the discussions are ongoing on the second phase of the Prime Minister's initiative, so that we can give substantial further encouragement to the recruitment of international students.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, notwithstanding that we on these Benches entirely agree that overseas students contribute to the economy of this country, does the Minister agree with me that it is not acceptable for any university to have an admissions policy, however discreet, of positive discrimination in favour of overseas students?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I agree.

NHS: Overseas Visitors

Baroness Boothroyd: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How widely they consulted on their document Proposals to Exclude Overseas Visitors from Eligibility to Free NHS Primary Medical Services; and when the results of the consultation will be published.

Lord Warner: My Lords, the Department of Health consulted widely on these proposals. The response to that consultation raised a range of complex and sensitive issues, which Ministers are carefully considering before deciding the way forward. We intend to publish the results of the consultation when we indicate the way forward.

Baroness Boothroyd: My Lords, I appreciate the complexity of this issue and am grateful for the Minister's response, although I fear he said little more than most of us already know. This consultation has taken a long time, and the consultation process came to an end in August 2004. Would it not be more direct and simpler to insist on insurance cover for healthcare from overseas visitors coming from a country where we do not have reciprocal health agreements? Only last week I renewed my health insurance, which is a requirement when making overseas visits outside the EU. Why is it not possible for this country to adopt a similar approach to reduce the cost of health tourism on the National Health Service?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness knows that we have already done a great deal to deal with health tourism in the changes we made in the arrangements for hospital treatment where there were examples of abuse, and we have taken action to remedy those. This consultation related to primary care. The costs involved are much more modest and the response has to be proportionate. From those consultations we saw a very large number of complex and sensitive issues—for example, the eligibility to free NHS treatment for failed asylum seekers, public health risks and the impact on equality. We have to consider those very carefully in relation to the problem that has been raised. Insurance was not one of the issues on which we consulted.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, was the impact on GPs, who are now at risk from violence, taken into account? If a GP in primary care refuses treatment to someone, is there an increased risk of violence, and was that factor taken into consideration?

Lord Warner: My Lords, one of the issues behind this consultation was, indeed, the impact on GPs. The noble Baroness raises an important issue. I am not aware of significant numbers of, or indeed any, assaults on GPs. I am aware of assaults on other NHS staff, and we have taken action in that area. If the noble Baroness would like to give me the details of particular assaults, I will certainly look into them.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, will the consultation report state the extent to which the 2004 proposals might compromise public health by dissuading people who cannot prove their citizenship from presenting for diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases?

Lord Warner: My Lords, the noble Baroness has correctly identified one of the complexities in this area, and I share her concerns over those complexities. That is why Ministers are not rushing to make changes and are considering these complex issues very carefully.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, what has been the annual cost of such visits?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we are talking about GPs. We spend £7 billion a year on GP and primary care services. The amounts that might be exploited in that area would be very modest indeed.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, how can we drain the world of its doctors and then complain about people coming to the United Kingdom for treatment?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we have good arrangements to stop the NHS recruiting. We have an ethical code, which stops recruitment in countries that cannot afford to lose their doctors. We cannot stop the free flow of health professionals to this country but we can limit the ability of the NHS to recruit them.

Earl Howe: My Lords, can the Minister give a slightly clearer indication of when the Government hope to publish their response to the consultation?

Lord Warner: My Lords, when we have analysed these complex and sensitive issues.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, first, during the consultation process did the Government examine the use of identity cards in reducing the bureaucracy that we presently encounter in many hospitals? Secondly, why was insurance not considered?

Lord Warner: My Lords, on the latter point, we tried to ensure that the arrangements for primary care were clear and in alignment with the arrangements for hospital treatment where we changed the charging regulations. There were no provisions in those hospital charging regulations for the kind of insurance arrangements suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd.
	ID cards will certainly help to confirm a person's identity and establish whether he or she is eligible for free NHS treatment. The proposals in the consultation document do not depend on the introduction of ID cards but are intended to dovetail with the ID card scheme.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, the Minister said that the cost was modest. Will he explain what is "modest"?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I also said that we did not have a precise figure. All will possibly be revealed when we complete our analysis of these complex issues and publish the consultation document.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, if it is intended that the National Health Service should dovetail with the ID card scheme, has an evaluation been made of the cost of ID card readers in every hospital and GP surgery?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I did not say that it was dependent on the ID card scheme; I said that it would dovetail with it.

Zimbabwe

Baroness Park of Monmouth: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What plans they and the European Union have to invoke the "international responsibility to protect" principle, agreed at the United Nations in September, to enable the United Nations agencies to distribute food to the people of Zimbabwe.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, world leaders agreed in September that states have primary responsibility for the protection of their own populations. Invoking the responsibility to protect requires the support of the Security Council. Clearly it is not a matter for the EU alone.
	In respect of food distribution, food shortages are rife but mass starvation is currently unlikely. The UN has, through the World Food Programme, secured agreement from the Government of Zimbabwe to distribute 300,000 tonnes of food to approximately 3 million people.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. Is she aware that on the day after the terrible Operation Cleanse Filth, people working with the urban poor in Harare appealed for help to the UN agencies in Zimbabwe, of which there are at least five, and to the Red Cross, to take in blankets, food and medicines? They were told that nothing could be done unless the Government asked for it. The Red Cross said that it could operate only in a war situation. Is there nothing that the Government can do through the Security Council and through those who might support us there to ensure that that policy will change and that the UN inside Zimbabwe will be required to do anything possible without having to ask the Zimbabwe Government, who will always say no? The whole idea of intervention, mentioned in my earlier question, makes no sense if we cannot do that.
	Finally, DfID gives a great deal of money inside Zimbabwe through the UN, so we have a certain right to ensure that that is properly used for the benefit of the people who need it.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, in respect of the noble Baroness's final point, DfID works through the UN and through NGOs. I assure the noble Baroness that the money is used properly and is properly accounted for. With respect to Operation Murambatsvina and the position first taken by the Government of Zimbabwe when they said that the UN would not be allowed to distribute humanitarian aid in the form of tents, and so on, I am pleased to report that that Government have now written to the UN saying that they are prepared to accept humanitarian support from it. I like to think that that is because of international pressure. Immediately following that Government's refusal, the UN Secretary-General put out a very strong statement, which was supported by the EU, the UK presidency of the EU and many others. I like to think that that changed the heart of the Government of Zimbabwe.

Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the General Assembly resolution spoke of compulsory intervention only as a final resort; only in order to protect the local population from serious international crimes; and, as my noble friend said, only on the authority of the Security Council? Does she agree that intervention without regard to those conditions would be a recipe not for protection but for anarchy?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, my noble and learned friend is right. The summit outcome document is absolutely clear. If national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, the international community is prepared to take collective action through the Security Council in accordance with the UN Charter. It is only by using those modes that such action will be legal.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of recent reports that government politicians and those associated with them have been siphoning off more than 1 million tonnes of maize from the state's grain marketing boards and selling it outside the country? Might that explain why they are happy to welcome United Nations grain in future? Has the international community factored in that siphoning off in deciding what Zimbabwe will need? What international action can be taken if that grain is being siphoned off in that way?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, sadly, I was not aware of that allegation. I will ensure that it is properly investigated and that the information is put before the House in the Library.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, bearing in mind that millions are starving in Zimbabwe and that people in places such as the Masvingo province are living on berries from day to day, has the noble Baroness noticed that a US official said that, as things proceed, it may be necessary for the United States to contemplate intrusive action? In the context of what she said about of the principles of intervention by the United Nations, are the British Government thinking in the same terms if nothing else is done?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am not aware of that comment, but I am sure that the UK Government are not thinking in those terms. The UK Government fully supported the agreement at the World Summit in September that such action would be taken only if the criteria that I mentioned earlier were adhered to.

Lord Blaker: My Lords, why is Zimbabwe not on the agenda for the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, bearing in mind that, when the apartheid regime of South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth, as Zimbabwe has done, Africa was always on the agenda? Could it be because members of the Commonwealth would be embarrassed at how little the Commonwealth has done to help relieve the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, as my noble friend the Leader of the House explained fully in our debate on the Commonwealth last week, Zimbabwe is not on the agenda for the next CHOGM because it was so fully debated at the previous meeting.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, has the noble Baroness made any representations to the Food and Agriculture Organisation about the bizarre spectacle of Mr Mugabe haranguing the recent anniversary meeting when he was responsible for what the FAO described as an acute crisis in which 5 million people needed food aid? Even if they were obliged to admit Mr Mugabe under the rubric that requires UN agencies to allow ministers to attend their meetings, why did the Italians grant a visa to Mrs Grace Mugabe? Cannot representations be made to the Italian authorities about that?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, such behaviour is utterly irrational and is sadly to be expected from those people. As the noble Lord will know there are targeted sanctions from the EU to certain people travelling but those targeted sanctions do have exemptions and that enabled them to travel.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, in response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, I should like to make clear that the action I was proposing was to have been within the Security Council. I was not suggesting anything else.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I note that and I beg the noble Baroness's pardon.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, before we start the Second Reading of the Terrorism Bill, which is the next but one item on the agenda, I would like to advise noble Lords about timing for the debate. There are 47 speakers and we have a target rising time of ten o'clock, so the advice to Back Benchers is that speeches of around seven minutes will meet the time. Also, the note we put on each speaker's list is a reminder of the courtesies of the House but also an injunction about the people who feel that they are unable to stay until the end. The little reminder, which does no harm, says,
	"Members who become aware in advance that they are unlikely to be able to stay until the end of the debate should remove their names from the list of speakers".

Consumer Credit Bill

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:—
	Clauses 1 to 55
	Schedule 1
	Clauses 56 to 59
	Schedule 2
	Clauses 60 to 69
	Schedule 3
	Clause 70
	Schedule 4
	Clause 71.—(Lord McKenzie of Luton.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Terrorism Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	No one can doubt the threat to our society posed by terrorism, particularly international terrorism. The list of terrorist atrocities around the world is long and many of the names are all too familiar: New York, Nairobi, Sharm el-Sheikh, Bali—tragically twice—Madrid and even in the period since the Bill was introduced in another place, there have been attacks in Amman and Karachi.
	Many of these attacks took place prior to the military action in Iraq and have continued since without abatement. This summer London was added to the list of places which have been attacked. I do not propose to dwell on the attacks of July because all of your Lordships will be familiar with those terrible events and because there are still ongoing investigations and prosecutions.
	Those attacks demonstrated that the threat we face is real and deadly. We cannot afford any complacency in our response. We must ensure that our anti-terrorism legislation is as comprehensive and up-to-date as possible. The international nature of terrorism means we must look internationally in our response and I am pleased to say that one of the important purposes of this Bill is to enable the United Kingdom to ratify two important international conventions.
	Perhaps I could begin by outlining the way in which the Government have approached this matter. We have said all along that in a matter as important as this we want to proceed by consensus. As I am sure your Lordships will have seen from the reports of proceedings in the other place, there has not been a complete meeting of minds. Nevertheless, it is important that we do not let the fact that there are still some areas of disagreement overshadow the fact that much of the Bill commands cross-party support.
	I am gratified that the Bill received an unopposed Third Reading in another place and I pay tribute to the opposition parties for their willingness to engage constructively. I am sure that there are points which we will debate vigorously in your Lordships' House but I hope we can continue to work in a spirit of consensus.
	It might be helpful if I were briefly to say something about the history of the Bill. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary made a commitment to bring forward further counter-terrorism legislation earlier this year during the passage of the Bill which became the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.
	Preparations for the Bill were already well under way in early July of this year, and on 15 July my right honourable friend sent out to the opposition spokesmen a list of measures that we proposed to include in the Bill. I am grateful to them for the positive response they were able to give. We also made it clear that we were consulting the police and intelligence agencies in the light of the attacks and would consider whether additional measures were required.
	My right honourable friend agreed with the principal opposition spokesmen at that time that we would dispense with formal pre-legislative scrutiny but that nevertheless, in the time available, we would engage in as much consultation as possible. Accordingly, we sent out the draft Bill to the opposition and relevant parliamentary committee chairs on 15 September. In the light of the helpful comments we received, we wrote again on 6 October, setting out some revised proposals in respect of the offence of glorification.
	It is also worth recording that both the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which some of your Lordships serve, have taken evidence about the Bill.
	The Bill was introduced in another place on 26 October. Although, by cross-party agreement, it had an accelerated passage through the House, it is important to stress that it was subject to very full scrutiny there. The Committee stage, unusually, took place on the Floor of the House so that all Members could participate. The Report stage was extended by the Government to allow extra time for debate and, again unusually, there was a full Third Reading debate. There were also plenty of Divisions in the other place so what we have before us is a Bill that has been properly considered and represents the will of another place.
	The Bill has stimulated huge interest and controversy. It has rigorously been scrutinised by the other place as a result, and properly so.
	So much for the Bill's history. I should like to say a little about its content. Part 1 contains several new offences, the first of which is the offence of encouragement to terrorism, also known as indirect incitement. It is already an offence under our law directly to incite people to commit specific terrorist acts. We now want to be able to deal with those who incite terrorism more obliquely but who nevertheless contribute to creating a climate in which impressionable people might believe that terrorism was acceptable.
	In another place there was lengthy debate on the question of intent and, as a consequence, the Government brought forward amendments. The Bill now provides that a person commits an offence if he or she makes a statement and intends that members of the audience should regard it as an inducement to commit terrorist acts or is reckless as to that possibility. This will, among other things, enable the United Kingdom to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism, the first of the two international conventions which I referred to earlier.
	The Bill extends the provisions to those who disseminate terrorist material, including on the Internet, but makes it clear that those who simply transmit material which does not reflect their views will not be caught.
	The encouragement offence also includes glorification. Again, this was the subject of much debate in another place. I am sure that your Lordships will want to discuss it in some detail. So on this occasion I will simply confine my remarks to reminding your Lordships that the creation of an offence of glorification of terrorism was an explicit commitment in the manifesto on which the Labour Party fought the 2005 general election, in which we said:
	"So we will introduce new laws to help catch and convict those involved in helping to plan terrorist activity and who glorify or condone acts of terror".
	The Bill creates a new offence of acts preparatory to terrorism, a matter which has been discussed in this House on a number of occasions.
	This was well trailed and has hitherto commanded all-party support, as I trust it will in your Lordships' House.
	The Bill deals with training for terrorism and makes it an offence to give or receive training for terrorist purposes and to attend a terrorist training camp. I am sure your Lordships will see why these measures are necessary.
	The Bill contains the necessary measures to enable the United Kingdom to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Suppression of Nuclear Terrorism, the second of the two conventions. The changes which the UK requires to comply with this convention are relatively minor, but it is important that we act quickly in order to set an example to the rest of the world.
	The Bill also extends the offence of criminal trespass to civil nuclear sites. I am sure the House will understand the desirability of such sites as targets for terrorists and why they need the maximum possible protection.
	The Bill increases the penalties for certain terrorist-related offences to reflect the gravity of the offences which we are dealing with. All prosecutions for offences in Part 1 require the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions; any offences involving the affairs of another country also require the consent of the Attorney-General.
	I will say a few words about extra-territorial jurisdiction as it featured prominently in the debates in another place. There was concern that extra-territorial jurisdiction, for which the Bill originally provided, went too wide. The Government have responded to that concern. Accordingly, the Government brought forward amendments in another place to limit the extra-territorial application of the new offences effectively to the extent required by the two conventions.
	Part 2 of the Bill makes two changes in respect of proscription. Proscription is an important part of our armoury in the fight against terrorism and I am grateful that your Lordships recently endorsed the order to proscribe an additional 15 organisations.
	The Bill widens the criteria for proscription to encompass those groups which glorify terrorism, where it is reasonable to expect that such glorification will be seen by others as an inducement to emulate the terrorist acts in question. Given that we are creating a new incitement offence, it makes sense for the proscription criteria to mirror it.
	The other change is to allow us to deal, by order, with proscribed groups which change their name. It clearly cannot be desirable for a proscribed group to seek to evade the consequences of proscription simply by changing its name.
	The next item in the Bill, pre-charge detention, has attracted the greatest attention. The Government, acting on the clear professional advice of the police, believe that the maximum pre-charge detention period in terrorist cases should be 90 days. The reasons for this have been repeatedly set out by Ministers and by the police—most notably by Assistant Commissioner Hayman, the country's most senior anti-terrorist police officer.
	The Members of another place, as is their absolute right, rejected the advice of the police and the Government and chose to set the maximum limit at 28 days. As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said, the Government accept the decision taken by the House. We will not seek to overturn it in another place—that other place is your Lordships' House.
	I understand that a number of your Lordships are minded to table amendments—if this matter came to Committee stage—to set the maximum limit at 90 days. I must tell your Lordships, on behalf of the Government, that that is not an amendment which we could now support.
	If such an amendment were so laid and pressed to a Division, on behalf of the Government, I would abstain. My Back-Bench colleagues would make their own individual judgments on the matter.
	It may be worth highlighting the other changes made to the Bill in respect of pre-charge detention. We have provided that all extensions beyond 14 days—all extensions—will be authorised by a High Court judge—or, in Scotland, a judge of the Court of Session. Up to 14 days, the consent of a district judge will, as now, be required. Authorisation will be on a weekly basis, though the judge will have discretion to grant shorter periods if the circumstances warrant it. At the behest of the other place, the Bill also includes a sunset clause. The power to hold people for up to 28 days prior to charge in terrorist cases will lapse and the limit will revert to 14 days unless there is an annual renewal vote in both Houses of Parliament.
	The rest of Part 2 contains mostly technical measures, including improvements to stop-and-search procedures and our warranty provisions. Again, we are very grateful for the support that we have received from the Opposition in respect of those measures. The Bill also makes a small change to the definition of terrorism, simply to bring threats against international bodies such as the United Nations within the scope of the definition. Beyond that, the Bill uses the tried-and-tested definition of terrorism. However, concern on that point was expressed in another place. Various amendments to provide new definitions were tabled but none was without problems or drawbacks.
	The Government do not believe that a better definition could be easily created but recognise that there is genuine concern on the point. Accordingly, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has invited the independent reviewer of our terrorism legislation, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, to carry out a review of the definition of terrorism. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, who is in his place, for agreeing to undertake the task. He has said that he will consult widely in carrying out his review and will report within one year of commencement of the Act. My right honourable friend has committed to laying his report before Parliament. He has also said that we will provide Parliament with an opportunity to debate and take a view on his conclusions. If consensus is achieved on a change to the existing definition, we would commit to bringing forward that change as soon as parliamentary time would allow.
	Part 3 contains the normal miscellaneous supplemental provisions. I should draw attention to Clause 35, which provides for an independent reviewer to be appointed to report on the operation of this legislation as well as the Terrorism Act 2000. That role is currently performed by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I am sure that all noble Lords will appreciate the care and attention that he brings to his role. He is noted for his independence of thought, so noble Lords may be interested in what he has said about the Bill. At paragraph 111 of the report published on 12 October this year he said:
	"I regard the current proposals as providing a set of useful and necessary additions to the law to counter terrorism".
	No one can doubt the threat that we face from international terrorism. The challenge to us is to devise a legislative response that meets that threat while at the same time safeguarding our vital civil liberties. We are satisfied that the Bill meets that test, and I therefore commend it to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Scotland of Asthal.)

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, as the noble Baroness indicated, terrorism represents the biggest single threat to the security of the United Kingdom. Anyone who has any lingering doubts about that has only to contemplate the hideous atrocity that took place on 7 July.
	We fully support the Government's determination to conquer terrorists, and the Bill should prove an important weapon in their armoury. As the noble Baroness also indicated, we disagree with the Government on the scope of some clauses; but, in doing so, we are in absolutely no doubt that the Bill should have been brought forward.
	I should, at the outset, pay tribute to the sterling efforts of the right honourable gentleman, the Home Secretary in seeking to resolve some of the differences between us before the Bill completed its stages in another place. If he was unsuccessful in resolving what, I suppose, was the central issue of contention between us—the length of time for pre-charge detention—he had important successes in other respects, two of which I should like to stress. The first is the introduction of a sunset clause; and the second is the decision to give High Court judges a role in determining whether someone ought to remain in detention during the period from 14 to 28 days. Both are extremely constructive initiatives to emerge from what I regarded as a helpful initiative on the Government's behalf.
	As noble Lords are aware, the sting has been extracted from the most hotly contested issue between the Government and the Opposition in this Bill; that is, the length of pre-charge detention. The increase recommended in the Bill in another place, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, has indicated was a colossal 14 to 90 days. In the event, an amendment tabled at Report, to reduce the 90 days to 28, succeeded by an extraordinary 33 votes, thanks to an unprecedented rebellion by Government Back-Benchers. I am not going to dwell on the wisdom of the Prime Minister choosing to ignore the Home Secretary's political advice on this matter.
	We, as the Opposition, will not be tabling amendments to the length of time determined by the other place, 28 days, but, as the noble Baroness suggested, we cannot exclude the possibility of such an amendment coming from the Back Benches in your Lordships' House. I therefore feel compelled to say something about that issue.
	We yield to no one in our admiration for the way the police have conducted the battle against terrorism. We have read carefully the report by the Association of Chief Police Officers. We question, however, their conclusions about the right length of time for pre-charge detention. Our view is that that solution is not necessary to confront the problems identified by the police in their report. These problems are far better dealt with by investing more resources in decryption and interpretation facilities, and in allowing, in strictly controlled circumstances, intercept evidence to be used in court proceedings.
	It is important that we do not fall into the trap of assuming that a nation's security is enhanced by the constraint of its citizens' liberties. This lesson was no more vividly learnt than during the period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland when the policy of internment was pursued. It sharpened the differences between the two communities; it exacerbated the problem we faced in the no-go areas and, perhaps, above all, it proved a massive disincentive to Catholics to provide information to our security forces.
	The 90-day pre-charge detention period is not as visible as the internment issue, but the fact is that if someone is detained for 90 days, that amounts to a six-month sentence from a court. It is highly likely to affect, disproportionately, British Muslims; and there is no doubt that in many instances, to a greater or lesser degree, those who serve such a sentence—along with their friends and families—will become disaffected. We will defeat terrorism in this country only if we have the full co-operation of the Muslim community. It is vital that members of the community recognise that their interests lie in the values of our society being upheld. If that is so, then the necessary intelligence will come forward to ensure that early warnings are given to the security forces about terrorist intentions.
	Two outstanding issues in the Bill are especially troubling to us, both of which are concerned with Clause 1. The first is the state of mind required of someone who commits the offence in Clause 1 of "encouragement". The second concerns the definition of "indirect incitement".
	It is trite for me to point out that, in almost all circumstances, in order to be convicted of a criminal offence in this country, you need either to intend to commit that offence or to be reckless as to whether it is committed—"reckless" in the sense of not caring one way or another whether the offence is committed.
	Superficially, the Government have followed the tradition very carefully. Clause 1(2) makes it clear that a person who intends to commit the offence of encouragement or a person who is reckless in relation to committing the offence of encouragement are the only two categories of person capable of being prosecuted. But if one's eye drops to Clause 1(3), one sees that recklessness for the purposes of this Bill is given a very special definition,
	"a person is to be taken as reckless as to whether a statement is understood",
	as encouraging terrorism if,
	"he could not reasonably have failed to be aware of that likelihood".
	There can be no doubt that that imports into the Bill a test of negligence, which has no place in our criminal law in relation to an offence of this sort, and we shall be tabling amendments to that effect when we consider this legislation in Committee.
	Our second concern is the definition of indirect encouragement in subsections (4) and (5) of Clause 1. I shall read out the subsection because it is vital to understand how difficult it will be for anyone making a statement to know whether it falls within its terms. Subsection (4) states that,
	"statements that are likely to be understood by members of the public as indirectly encouraging the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism . . . include every statement which—
	(a) glorifies the commission or preparation . . . of such acts or offences; and
	(b) is a statement from which those members of the public could reasonably be expected to infer that what is being glorified is being glorified as conduct that should be emulated by them in existing circumstances".
	Subsection (5) states that:
	"For the purposes of this section the questions how a statement is likely to be understood and what members of the public could reasonably be expected to infer from it must be determined having regard both—
	(a) to the content of the statements as a whole; and
	(b) to the circumstances and manner of its publication".
	A fundamental principle in our criminal law is the principle of certainty. We must know where we stand in relation to the criminal law. We must know where the line is between legality and illegality. That principle has now been reinforced by Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In my submission, subsections (4) and (5) fall well short of meeting those tests.
	The definition of "glorification" is given in the interpretation section of the Bill, which states:
	"'glorification' includes any form of praise or celebration, and cognate expressions are to be construed accordingly".
	I shall be most interested to find out in Committee exactly what the Government think that expression means. It is extremely vague.
	Vague, too, is the link between glorification and emulation. What about the need to address the contents of the published statement and the circumstances and manner of that publication in trying to establish how a statement is to be understood to be likely to encourage terrorism? What might the public infer from that? The subsections fall well short of the standard that we are entitled to expect from a legislative draftsman in drafting a criminal offence.
	In another place, the Government suggested that we need not really worry about this because prosecutions could be instituted only by the Director of Public Prosecutions. I suppose we should deduce from that that the Director of Public Prosecutions will always know what the law is. However, that is an extremely bad constitutional principle. What matters is not what the Director of Public Prosecutions thinks the law is, but what Parliament says the law is. There is a real danger that the Government will substitute the rule of law for prosecutorial discretion.
	The Bill in other respects, too, does not meet the standard of certainty. That is one of the areas upon which the Opposition intend to focus fully in Committee and on Report. There are many other issues that we intend to address as well.
	The noble Baroness has already mentioned the definition of "terrorism", and we are extremely pleased to learn that the Government have decided to ask the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, to look into the definition in the course of the first year of the Act's operation. We are also concerned about the geographical scope of some of the offences. What seems highly questionable to us is whether somebody making a statement abroad, which is caught by Clause 1, in relation to terrorist acts that are committed wholly abroad, ought to be caught by the Bill. We are also concerned about statements made by individuals in this country about alleged terrorist acts abroad, in circumstances where they are simply supporting the opposition to a particularly repellent totalitarian regime.
	There are problems in Clause 2 of the Bill concerning the dissemination of terrorist publications, especially for those working in universities or lending libraries. Those who are involved in Internet activity will be extremely concerned about Clause 3(2) and the powers that it gives for a constable to issue notices. We shall be tabling amendments to that clause as well. We also believe that the Government are wrong in being determined not to provide a defence to the definition of "Training for terrorism" under Clause 6.
	In making these points, I wish to repeat what I said at the beginning of my speech. We support the Bill and, in tabling amendments, we want to make it better than it is. We hope that when it becomes an Act it will significantly enhance the Government's ability to confront terrorism.

Lord McNally: My Lords, when the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, gave his Dimbleby lecture on Wednesday last, he asked a number of thought-provoking questions about the nature and powers of policing in our modern age. Some of those questions were very difficult to answer, but one was very simple: he asked who should decide. There can be only one answer to that in a parliamentary democracy—Parliament must decide. If we needed any reminder of the awesome nature of that responsibility, events in Bradford on Friday afternoon came as a timely reminder. If we in Parliament insist, and rightly so, that it is here that we must decide the kind and extent of powers we wish to give those who fight crime and terror on our behalf, we have to do so with due regard to the dangers that the police and security services face in the line of duty.
	If the dangers of modern policing are one factor which sobers our collective responsibility, so does the knowledge that the security of the realm and the safety of the citizen are the first duties of government. This House is full of collective wisdom on all the matters covered by the Bill. It has no little experience in dealing with such legislation, as this, after all, is the sixth such Bill we have had to consider since 1997. Each of the preceding Acts, as does this Bill, ratcheted a couple of notches in the loss of hard-won civil liberties and hard-won freedoms. Parliament, sometimes with great reluctance and sometimes with grim unity, has sanctioned new powers in the face of threats and evidence of clear and present danger.
	But if we are to do our job with responsibility, we must examine whether the powers given in the past have been properly and effectively used, as well as whether the new powers requested in the Bill are justified. Otherwise every terrorist outrage will bring forth another Bill, another notch on the ratchet and another turn of the screw until we find ourselves without the civil liberties we are fighting terrorism to defend.
	If Parliament has a difficult job, so, too, do Ministers. To govern is to make decisions. We all know the high regard in which the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, is held in the House. I hold a similar high regard for the Home Secretary. He is a personal friend of more than 25 years' standing. Two weeks ago he addressed the Liberal Democrat Lords Group, with great charm, great conviction and a total mastery of his brief.
	That very favourable impression was only faintly marred when he gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph a few days later headlined:
	"When I listen to liberals I think they're pathetic".
	That kind of statement, coupled with another one from the same article—
	"I was never a civil libertarian"—
	worries and concerns us. I have more trust in this Home Secretary than either of his immediate predecessors—I think his instincts are right—but he seems to fall too easily into new Labour language which seeks to make "liberal" a pejorative term, a tactic learnt directly from the neo-conservatives in the United States.
	The result of this approach, espoused by the Home Secretary but promulgated vigorously by the Prime Minister, is to position Mr Blair and his tough no-nonsense Government as the only true defenders of national security and the safety of the citizen, and the rest of us as soft on terrorism. It was that approach that prevented the all-party consensus on this legislation developing over the summer. Both David Davis and Mark Oaten had promised full co-operation to try to develop an all-party approach only to find that the Prime Minister had gone solo in his headline-grabbing press conference on 5 August.
	However, as we have heard, in spite of the Sun-inspired hysteria and the quite improper involvement of senior police officers in a lobbying exercise on behalf of the Government, the other place held its nerve and the Bill comes to us with the key clause on 90 days reduced to 28 days. I suspect that in the course of this debate we will hear the opinions of those who support the original 90 days and those who are unhappy even with the extension to 28. I hope that we can listen to all views with respect. I agree with Frank Dobson MP, who said that what divides us is not the desire to defeat terrorism but genuine differences of opinion on how best to achieve that aim.
	Over the past 10 years, I have listened to many debates in this House about the right balance between civil liberties and the need to protect the citizen from crime and terror. One of the most memorable moments for me came shortly after I had arrived in the House, when Lord Taylor of Gosforth, who had recently retired on health grounds from the position of Lord Chief Justice and who was terminally ill, came and spoke and heavily criticised Mr Michael Howard's White Paper, Protecting the Public. I remember the passion of that speech, and the cheers from the Labour Benches at its sentiments. Nine years later, Labour Home Secretaries outdo each other in trying to prove how much tougher they are than Michael Howard ever was as they dance to the tunes of intolerance piped by the Sun and the Daily Mail.
	I am sure that noble Lords opposite will say that circumstances have changed since they cheered Lord Taylor on a decade ago, and they are right. There is no doubt that the rapid changes in technology, whether it be in the ease of international transport or the revolution in electronic communications, mean that the terrorist threat is more global and more complex than we have faced in the past. The communications revolution also means that grievances and injustices are transmitted in an instant to radicalise and inflame individuals and communities.
	That makes it all the more important, however, that we hold firm to our own values and freedoms. I read with interest what President Jimmy Carter wrote in the Observer yesterday, when he bemoaned how easy it was for a society to become brutalised and desensitised by the very powers it takes to protect itself. That is why, even in the face of changed circumstances and present threats, we hold firm to certain beliefs. Torturing people is wrong, full stop, and we cannot condone it, even by proxy. Depriving people of their liberty is a serious matter that can be done only by due process of law. Freedom of speech and opinion are important ingredients of a functioning democracy, which can be circumscribed only with great care.
	That does not mean that we are passive in the face of new threats. We on these Benches have argued consistently that we must look for ways to bring prosecutions through a recognised judicial process, and we need a security service with the power, resources and capabilities to penetrate terrorist organisations and thwart their evil intent. In seeking to provide a framework for such laws and powers, both we and the Conservative Party have played a full and constructive part, both before and after the events of 7 July. Until the Prime Minister decided that political capital was to be gained by going it alone and second-guessing his Home Secretary, both David Davis and Mark Oaten had made constructive contributions to the framing of large parts of this Bill.
	We have sought consistently to find effective, rather than headline-grabbing, solutions. That is why we would prefer, for example, to ensure that our intelligence and security services had the resources to do the job rather than divert millions—or is it billions?—into an identity card scheme that will have little practical effect on the war on terror.
	Beyond the powers, the technology, the equipment and the intelligence needed by those we ask to defend us, there is a need to win hearts and minds. We have to ensure that all our fellow citizens, from every community, see the war against terror as their war too. As the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said, the lesson from Northern Ireland and other areas of conflict is that laws or methods that do not win hearts and minds inflame problems rather than solve them.
	So we need no lectures from the Prime Minister about the dangers posed by terrorism, nor should there be any doubt about our willingness to support measures and resources to enable the police and security forces to fight the war on terrorism. The issue before the House today is whether this Bill is the best way forward and whether it represents the most effective way of providing those powers and resources without fatally undermining the freedoms and civil liberties that the war on terrorism is being fought to defend.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, referred to Northern Ireland. I remember another speech made in this House by the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, in the debate on terrorism just before the general election. He said that internment without trial had proved the best recruiting sergeant that the IRA had ever had. So, in considering this legislation, I commend a dictum of an old mentor of mine, Lord Gormley. Joe used to say, "Don't build platforms for malcontents to stand on". As well as examining how tough this legislation is and how far it meets popular demands for resolute action, let us bear in mind also the warning of the noble Lord, Lord King, that draconian measures can prove counterproductive, and Joe Gormley's wisdom about providing the enemy with a rallying point and a cause.
	The Minister explained the background to the Bill, and the House is extremely grateful to her. My noble friends Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Goodhart will give detailed responses to the proposals and lead from these Benches in Committee. We will hear also from my noble friend Lord Carlile, who has rendered such distinguished service as an independent reviewer of the working of the earlier terrorist legislation. As we have already heard, he is so independent of mind as already to have made it into the Minister's speech. We will hear also from a number of my other colleagues, not least my noble friend Lady Williams, who is a former Home Office Minister.
	We on these Benches will examine constructively the proposals in the Bill and the lessons learnt from both the terrorist attack of 7 July and the almost successful attack two weeks later. We will do so not only in terms of the efficacy of the new proposals but also in the light of what the Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald QC, has called the,
	"enormous amount of legislation that can be used in the fight against terrorism already".
	Liberty, in its briefing on the Bill, makes the valid point that certain clauses cast the net of criminality so wide that people will be loath to say anything that might be interpreted as an encouragement to terrorism. It goes on to make the following point:
	"This is not area where the criminal law is currently lacking. As well as the incitement offences we have referred to, it is already illegal to incite terrorism by any written or electronic publication, to collect or make any record of information useful for terrorism, or possess any article for the purpose of terrorism".
	We have a long debate ahead of us. The Prime Minister, however, still seems to have difficulty in understanding and getting his head round the process which is under way. Today's Guardian reports that he is again threatening your Lordships if we do any serious damage to the Bill. The report carries a rather strange headline:
	"Lords threaten rough ride for anti-terror bill".
	But the story underneath it contains the less-than-startling news that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and I have said that we will give the Bill "a thorough going-over" and scrutinise its provisions line by line before sending it back to the Commons. That is not news; that is what this House of Lords does. That is what this House of Lords does very well. That is what this House of Lords will do to this Bill today and in the weeks ahead.

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, the London bombings of 7 July have confirmed that our nation faces a grave challenge, which, despite our prolonged experience of IRA terrorism, has significantly new features. The international origins of the threat, the loosely organised groups which lie low with destructive intent, and the use of suicide bombers present new problems to our police and security services. But the challenge is not only one of detection or prevention. The strategies and policies that we adopt in response will affect the very character of our society, and we must be both vigilant and discerning.
	We must begin from the raw human impact of what happened in July, borne by the people who were suddenly killed, maimed and traumatised. Our gratitude and admiration go out to those who worked to recover and relieve them in harrowing conditions. As we reflect on the consequences, we acknowledge the truly daunting responsibility borne by those whose task is to prevent future atrocities and to engage effectively with the causes of the threats. They deserve our informed, but not uncritical, support.
	On these Benches we believe that a successful counter-terrorism policy must, without excusing violence, understand and address its underlying causes. In relation to radical Islamist movements, our knowledge of suicide bombers suggests that many of them are estranged both from western society and mainstream Islam, driven by motives of revenge, and inspired by perverted ideals of martyrdom, fed by extremist teaching, not so much in the local mosque as in the myriad of web pages that are readily available. Their actions cannot, therefore, be detached from the international situation.
	As we know from many situations, terrorism feeds on a sense of grievance. Part of the response must be a political strategy that engages with Muslim perceptions of injustice in the United Kingdom and across the world. We must get beyond portraying ourselves or anyone else as purely innocent victims of other people's wrongdoings and therefore beyond criticism. Counter-terrorism has to embrace long-term attention to underlying causes and the more immediate business of intelligence and policing. Government have the God-given duty both to restrain and punish wrongdoing and to protect rights and freedoms. In striking a balance between the demands of security and liberty, we must guard against the progressive erosion of fundamental rights. Powers once granted have a tendency to be extended beyond their original scope. Any proposal to restrict rights and liberties may be assessed by the criteria of necessity: is it likely to work and is there any other way of doing it; and proportionality: is the restriction comparable in scale with the threat that it seeks to forestall? The problem then is how to weigh various risks against one another.
	In this light we look at the provisions of the current Bill and conclude that most of them satisfy such tests, but we have anxieties about other provisions. One of the most disturbing meetings that I have recently attended was with a senior London police officer. It was obvious that in his mind it was not a question as to whether there would be another terrorist attack in London, the question was simply, "When would it happen?". If that is so and if the attacks are difficult to prevent without much more intensive intelligence, it is understandable that any government would want to send clear signals to the public that they were doing everything possible to prevent an attack. The danger of this is that draconian measures might be proposed which themselves would undermine the way of life of a civilised democracy. None of us wants to be accused the day after an attack of failing in our civic duty; but part of our duty is to keep a sense of proportion in considering fresh legislation.
	Belmarsh Prison lies in my diocese. Visiting there last Christmas Day, I became quite anxious about the difficulties that the prison authorities were having in dealing with foreign nationals who were then imprisoned without charge or available evidence, with no indication of the length of detention. The normal prison regime involving sentence plans just cannot work in such conditions, and so the duty of care for all prisoners cannot be honoured.
	Thankfully, since last Christmas, prison detention has been replaced by control orders that enable house arrests, but the Bill proposes to increase the maximum time limit for detention of terrorist suspects without charge from 14 to 28 days. We on these Benches believe that that is about right. The police have made a credible case for some increase on account of the complexity of investigating international terrorist networks. What is less clear is whether such considerations warrant a sixfold increase in the maximum period, as the Government originally proposed. Depriving people of their liberty on mere suspicion, even with judicial safeguards, is a very serious matter. We also need to consider the effect of an extended limit on the attitudes of innocent suspects and the communities from which they come.
	Some of the Government's measures raise concerns about free speech and religious liberty. The overworked term "extremist" fails to distinguish between people whose behaviour is connected with terrorism and those whose views are simply unpleasant, intolerant or unwelcome. Trying to suppress or exclude anyone who falls under this label may increase, rather than diminish, sympathy and support for terrorists. A more discriminating approach to unfamiliar ideologies is needed.
	Before and after the July bombings, the Churches have sought to strengthen inter-faith relations. However, relations between faith communities must not be dominated by the counter-terrorism agenda. While bilateral consultations between the Government and Muslim communities are necessary, the involvement of all faith communities in tackling issues of diversity and cohesion must also be maintained. The experience of the Christian Church is that, in a fallen world, understanding and reconciliation are attainable only by engagement—that is, through perceptiveness, hard thinking, repentance, courage and costly effort. The challenge of terrorism is not just to government and public organisations, but to every citizen in seeking a way of life which reflects the justice, compassion and perseverance of God.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, in supporting the Second Reading of this Bill today, I speak from the particular experience over the past few years of endeavouring to tackle the issue of terrorism in an international context. Many of your Lordships know far more than I about the powers of the Home Office and the police in dealing with terrorism. Others have great expertise in our legal system and how well or badly equipped we are to deal with the terrorist threat in our courts. Still others are well versed in the powers and practices of the special services, as evidenced by the excellent debate in your Lordships' House on intercept evidence last Friday.
	My experience over the past few years, however, has been in dealing with the international aspects of terrorism—our dialogue with overseas countries about how we tackle this shared threat most effectively and how we co-operate where we can. Crucially, like many others working in the field, I have concentrated on how we fulfil our obligations and deep-seated desire to uphold human rights and human dignity; not only of those who may be, or are thought to be, involved in terrorism, but also of the innocent victims of terrorism, actual and potential: the rights of those killed, maimed or shattered for ever by the loss of those they loved, through an act of terrorism.
	I shall confine my arguments to the three aspects of the Bill which have caused most controversy: first, the establishment of a new offence of encouragement to acts of terrorism; secondly, the measure which widens the grounds for proscription to include the glorification of terrorism; thirdly, the extension of the period of detention to 28 days.
	We are all aware of the international nature of terrorism today. It is different from the terrorism that most of us have lived through; for example, in relation to Northern Ireland. Suicide bombing is different. The terrorist who is not only reckless of his or her own life, but positively seeks their own death as an intrinsic part of that terrorism, is very different from one who needs escape and shelter after the carnage they cause. For the suicide bomber, there is no negotiation. Whatever the grievances or injustices, perceived or real, that have led to the decision to perpetrate terrorism, the suicide bomber's objective is to destroy not only the target of their terrorism, but to destroy themselves too.
	An individual who straps explosives around their body and gets on a bus or train in London, Madrid or Tel Aviv; who walks into a hotel in Sharm el-Sheik, a wedding in Amman or a nightclub in Bali; who knows that they must stand next to those who are sitting in order to cause the maximum number of fatalities—that person needs neither a support team nor an extensive group or planners, nor a safe haven.
	We often talk about terrorist activity today as if it is carried out by organisations with recognisable structures and hierarchies. But all too often, today's terrorism is very different. It is less organisation-based and more movement-based. Networks exist, but they are often not the hierarchical organisations which many of us would recognise. Movement-based terrorism peddles its special band of hatred through direct incitement; through encouragement, mainly of young people, to emulate those who are held up as martyrs for their own acts of mass murder through direct glorification of the devastation and death that they have caused.
	Those who object to the inclusion of these measures because they believe they are too broad or too precise do so, I know, through the best of all possible motives; to protect freedom of expression and the rights we all cherish in a democratic society to speak out against perceived or real tyranny. But the fact is that, in the struggle against terrorism, those who incite—those who encourage and glorify terrorism—have a huge advantage over those of us who believe in democracy, the rule of law and human rights. The very language of democracy—of human rights and freedom of expression—is anathema to them. By contrast, the language of extremism is familiar, relying as it does on absolute and authoritarian views which brook no argument. In short, we believe that everybody has the right to argue their case. They believe in their right to suppress that argument and the democratic debate that goes with it.
	In discussing these issues, as I have extensively over the past few years, I have come across two recurring themes—and two recurring themes increasingly in the past year or so. One is a fear that there may be growing hostility to the Muslim community in the United Kingdom, and that Muslims may be likely to suffer from any new laws to combat terrorism. The second is that, for far too long, the United Kingdom has been soft on extremists and soft on terrorism. It is claimed that we allow individuals to use and abuse our liberal laws to promote instability in their home countries. Now, it is claimed, we are getting a taste of our own medicine. That is hard to hear, I know, but I hear these themes too often to ignore them. I believe that both need answering robustly.
	Those in another place have changed the Bill in the period of detention permissible. That is of course their right in a democracy, but in a democracy I can also say: I believe that to be a profound misjudgment. I know, from experience, how long it takes to deal with issues of terrorism overseas—not just on a theoretical basis, but in dealing with practicalities. There are issues of information exchange which might impinge upon sovereignty; procedures which may be unconstitutional in one jurisdiction and permissible in another; police systems and interior ministries; courts which vary enormously in terms of the evidence permissible and the role of lawyers. Internationally, we are not yet sufficiently integrated in our approach for matters to move quickly, even where there is certainty as to the identity of a suspect. Where there is a degree of uncertainty, the problems are hugely compounded, which does not even begin to touch on the delicate and sensitive issues surrounding specialist agencies.
	I have no doubt that in this great dilemma—of the need for security to be balanced against the rights of some—our laws need to be more robust if we are to fulfil our first duty; to protect the safety and security of the people of this country. So I hope that when we come to debate the Bill in detail we shall be thinking not only of theories but of facts—of what really happens when security fails. I hope we shall think not only of the few who want to destroy innocent lives, but of the many who deserve protection, and who want and expect their democracy and human rights to be protected by this Parliament.

Lord Hurd of Westwell: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, the Minister and all those who support the Government's case have often, in recent months, spoken of the need to strike a balance between the liberty of the individual and the safety of the community. They suggest, as the noble Baroness has just done, that we need to strike that balance in a different place now because of the particular dramatic, sinister brand of terrorism with which we are faced. She perfectly rightly said that suicide bombing is different. We have to accept that basic point. Those of us who are, by nature, liberals with a small "l"—I say that to the noble Lord, Lord McNally—and who believe passionately in the liberty of the individual, and know how vulnerable that liberty has always been to arguments of public safety, have to accept that we do need to re-think the balance.
	However, we should not suspend the need for balance. We should not allow terrorists to unhinge our powers of judgment on these matters, or to induce us to forget some very valid lessons from the past. That is why, personally, I much preferred the line taken by the Prime Minister in the days immediately after the July bombings, when he said that we must not allow the terrorists to coerce us into changing our basic way of life. I preferred that to the mood which was with him on 5 August before the holiday, which produced the rather hectic proposals then, and, more recently, the hectic efforts to push them through in the Bill in its original form in another place.
	Against that background, I should like to say a few words about two parts of the Bill: first, Clause 1 and the glorifying and encouraging of terrorism. Of course I fully accept what the Minister said, that that has come to us substantially improved from another place. I think that the effect is still somewhat obscure. I should like to give a bit of advice to the Home Secretary, if that is not presumptuous. We should not spend too much time pursuing individuals because they delight in saying disgraceful things. These people earn, or think they earn, their headlines by this public unpleasantness. But obnoxious clerics, and, in my experience, obnoxious people of all descriptions, tend to have good lawyers. I think that the Home Secretary would find himself wasting a lot of time if he went down this path too often. I do not believe that there is serious evidence that these loudmouths are essentially responsible for acts of terrorism. We need to worry not so much about the loudmouths but about the quiet acts of subversion and training from dangerous people up and down our country, who, on the whole, keep their mouths shut.
	Of course there is a difficult distinction between those who express hateful views and those who actually prepare acts of terrorism. The Bill attempts to make that distinction. The best part in it is the belated action on the recommendation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, in, I think, 1996, that we should make illegal preparing acts of terrorism. I do not believe that the part of the Bill dealing with the glorification of terrorism will make our lives safer.
	Perhaps I may add another word of advice to the Home Secretary. It is not directly relevant because it comes under the Royal Prerogative. But, in this day of television and the Internet, it is rather old-fashioned to rely too much on powers of exclusion. If you are thinking of vulnerable young men in Birmingham or Leeds, it does not make a huge amount of difference if the incitement comes to them from someone in London or someone in Beirut. The international media today do not rely very much on frontiers, or, I am sorry to say, on the edicts of the Home Secretary.
	The second point relates to the powers of detention in Clauses 23 and 24. Again, as the Minister said, these have come to us, in my view, in a greatly improved form from the other place. But scrutiny is still needed. This is the main point I want to make this afternoon. I am convinced, from my own experience and from everything I have read or heard since, that intelligence not legislation is the key to successful counter-terrorism. I fear that our intelligence in these matters is, again, scanty. I say "again" because we know of the difficulties we got into in Iraq because of scanty intelligence. I believe that our intelligence is scanty as regards what is happening in our towns and cities. I do not blame the police or the intelligence agencies for that; it is not easy or quick to concentrate resources, which are limited anyway, on new and difficult targets. But the scantiness of intelligence must affect our judgment on the powers which it is right to give to those who have to act on that intelligence.
	That brings me to the role of the police. It is right in our democracy that the Government should ask for, and whether asked for or not, that the police should give—in private to Ministers and to the public—their views on the powers that they need. But Ministers should not suspend their own powers of judgment, or come to Parliament telling us that it is the view of the police or the agencies so we must accept it. Nor should the police urge Parliament to suspend its views or judgment, but that is what has been happening.
	We have an admirable and effective police service, and we have been reminded again in the past 48 hours how much we owe them. We do not ask them to draft our laws on criminal justice, any more than we ask teachers or nurses to draft our laws on education or health. Nor certainly should Ministers propel the police into the front line of parliamentary debate to bring about the results that the Government want.
	There are two reasons why there is a distinction between the role of Ministers and the role of the police. First, there are considerations that are for Parliament and Ministers and not necessarily for the police—for example, the effect of a Bill on the views of the minority community and on its willingness to co-operate with the police and the Government. We know that we need co-operation in the fight against terrorism. That is arguable; I am not expressing a view. But that argument should take place in this House and in the other place. It is not a matter essentially for the police.
	Secondly—I am trying to deal with this point delicately—the police in their state of scanty intelligence are not infallible. I am not talking about detention after charge and before conviction. But detention without charge, whether for 90 or 28 days—obviously it is worse if it lasts for 90 days—can ruin an individual's life. He can lose his job or his family; he can go bust. It is hard to defend the use of that degree of detention if it is based on the kind of intelligence that led—we do not know how yet—to the shooting of the innocent Brazilian recently.
	On a personal note, I spent many difficult weeks—two Christmases running—poring over the evidence in the terrorist cases of the Birmingham and Guildford bombers. In those days it was the personal responsibility of the Home Secretary, but fortunately that is no longer so. Initially the police were entirely clear and absolute in their view that the verdicts based on police evidence were right. In both cases, after many twists and turns the verdicts turned out to be wrong. In judging such matters it is necessary to have that kind of memory and recollection.
	It is wrong for Ministers and their press officers to suggest that it is opportunistic or disreputable to give close, occasionally sceptical, scrutiny to these proposals. The noble Baroness, in introducing the Bill, breathed sweetness and light, as usual, but she knows perfectly well the remarks that were made in another place after the recent votes. It would be irresponsible to ignore the threat of terrorism and the fact that the threat, as the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, said, is more dangerous than and different from the one we had before. But it would be equally bad and irresponsible if we as a House of Parliament failed to give the Bill not partisan hostility, but the kind of scrutiny—and occasional sceptical scrutiny—that it deserves.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, all Members of this House agree that terrorism must be detected, defeated and punished. My noble friend Lord McNally said that we will play a full and constructive part, as we have in earlier terrorism legislation. For example, we proposed earlier that there should be an offence of acts preparatory to terrorism and we are pleased that that is now contained in Clauses 5 and 6. However, we have considerable reservations about other proposed offences. We believe that badly thought out and rushed-through new offences may, by risking the conviction and imprisonment of entirely innocent people, weaken not strengthen the security of the state. Resentment and bitterness may breed new terrorists. Suicide bombers are by definition oblivious to criminal sanctions. If the confidence of the community in the fairness and justice of the law is lost, so is the best chance of conviction. It takes bravery for a person to come forward to give information to the police, let alone to give evidence in court. That bravery is sustained by the community that supports those people. Without reliable sources of human intelligence, the detection and punishment of crime would be impossible.
	My noble friend Lord Goodhart will address Clause 1 in some detail, but I want to make two points. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, referred to the definition of "reckless" in Clause 1(3). In 1982, in the case of Caldwell, I argued that a person should not be held to be reckless unless he realised the risk that his actions caused and knowingly took that risk. I was unsuccessful and it was held that the test of recklessness was objective. Two years ago, 20 years after that earlier decision, in the case of the Crown against G, the Judicial Committee reconsidered and reversed Caldwell—to my great satisfaction, as your Lordships would expect. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, said that an objective test of recklessness was capable of "leading to obvious unfairness" yet, in the Bill, the Government are seeking to revert to an objective definition of reckless, a definition that this House, in its judicial capacity, has discarded. We shall seek to remove the likelihood of obvious unfairness from the clause.
	Then there is the curious expression, "glorify". What is that supposed to mean? Is it mere approval? Suppose that there were a scheme to drown another Welsh valley to extract water and I were to praise those who blew up the pipeline near to Llyn Celyn about 50 years ago, on the grounds that their actions were a significant and fruitful political act. Would I be glorifying them? Would I have committed an offence if some hotheads were encouraged by my words to conspire to blow up the new scheme in future? Suppose that I commended the Afghans who hijacked the plane and caused the pilot to fly to Stansted as freedom fighters against the Taliban—a group that we have since attacked and destroyed. Would I be glorifying them? Would I have committed an offence if my words encouraged a group of opposition supporters in Zimbabwe to hijack a plane to fly to safety in this country—a Schedule 1 offence under the Bill?
	How would one direct a jury about the meaning of "glorification" in Clause1? Is it expressing approval? Is it praising? Is it going down on my knees and crying, "Hallelujah"? When we introduce emotive expressions such as that, which do not clearly describe the conduct to be criminalised and could be interpreted quite differently by different people, we are asking for trouble. We shall seek to remove the, "Glory, glory, hallelujah" element from the Bill.
	However, that word does not just appear in Clause 1, because in Clause 21 in Part 2, there is a definition of glorification. Clause 21 prescribes non-violent political organisations that indulge in the "unlawful glorification" of terrorist acts. The clause is engaged where the organisation praises the activities of revolutionaries, freedom fighters or a resistance movement against their constitutional government, however repressive and anti-democratic that government may be. Unlike individuals charged under Clause 1, it will not be necessary to prove that the praise of celebration of terrorism by the organisation is intended to encourage violent acts. What is unlawful is a risk that someone might want to alienate the contract praised. Dare an organisation or political party praise the Chechnyans for resisting the Russian-backed Government or the Zimbabwean opposition for resisting Mugabe? Glorifying Mr Mugabe will not be a criminal offence because, for better or worse, he is recognised by this country as the head of a constitutional government.
	But whether an organisation is proscribed as unlawful is not the decision of a British court—it is the decision of the Home Secretary, who brings forward regulations. He decides whether the organisation is glorifying terrorism and, by the stroke of a pen, may make membership of such a body a criminal offence, punishable by 10 years' imprisonment. We will need to examine this clause with considerable care because we believe it involves the banning of free speech and the criminalising of membership and supporters and we do not believe it will do anything to combat terrorism. It is more likely to create martyrs and more resentment.
	I turn to the issue of 90 days or 28 days. It became a trial of strength for Mr Blair—and he lost. We do not propose to reopen the issue of 28 days, although it is of course twice as long as the present period between arrest and charge. The basis of it is that the security services and the police assert, "We know something you don't know and if we told you, we'd have to kill you". But we have been here before. I have only to mention weapons of mass destruction; we should not fall for that sort of argument twice.
	There was no logic to 90 days; there is no logic to 28—it is a compromise, with no practical value one way or the other. No one can be arrested without there being at least some reasonable suspicion of his having committed an offence based on something: intercepts, human intelligence or surveillance. Little more is required to charge him with an offence of "acts preparatory to terrorism". Under the Director of Public Prosecution's charging guidelines, already issued to the CPS and police, there is a "threshold test". It is already possible for the CPS to charge suspects prospectively, where there is a reasonable suspicion of guilt but admissible evidence is not yet available and it is in the public interest to do so.
	The guidelines set out a number of factors, including the sort of evidence that is required and how soon it will be recovered. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Code C, paragraph 16.5, questioning after charge is permitted to prevent harm to the public or in the interests of justice. Fresh evidence obtained from encryption or something of that sort may be put to a person who has already been charged. There is no reason why an investigation cannot continue after charge. It should be possible under proper judicial supervision to extend this practice in terrorist cases, subject to the overall scrutiny of a senior judge. We shall bring forward amendments to that end and we hope that we shall improve this Bill.

Lord Lloyd of Berwick: My Lords, Clause 5 makes it an offence to prepare to commit an act of terrorism. This clause fills an important gap in terrorist legislation. It will enable us to catch suspected terrorists at a much earlier stage and thereby save lives. I give Clause 5 a warm welcome.
	I turn next to Clause 1 and glorification. The idea of making glorification an offence was, we have been told by the Minister, included in the Labour Party manifesto. It was certainly given prominence by the Prime Minister in his press conference on 5 August this summer. When the draft Bill was published, glorification was treated as a separate offence in a separate clause, but it did not survive long in that form. In his announcement on, I believe, 6 October the Home Secretary said that glorification would now be transferred from a separate clause to Clause 1. It would have been much better if it had been dropped altogether at that stage.
	There are a great many words in Clause 1(4). I have read them many times and I am still not at all sure that I really understand them. Sometimes I come to the conclusion that they mean nothing and sometimes I conclude that they mean something really rather sinister.
	They seem to be saying that a statement glorifying an act of terrorism, whether past, present or future, is to be deemed to be likely to be understood by members of the public as an encouragement to commit other acts of terrorism. If that is the meaning, then it is a most unusual provision. In any event, on any view, it fails the test of legal certainty, so well described by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland.
	I am a member of the public—we are all members of the public. But if I read a statement glorifying the activities of the African National Congress, I am not at all likely to understand it as an encouragement for me to commit acts of terrorism. So why should I be deemed to be likely to understand it in that way by this provision? It does not make sense. When one looks at it closely, it is clear to me that Clause 1(4) must go. If it stays in the Bill, I predict that it will never see the light of day in a court.
	When the Home Secretary made his announcement on 6 October, he said that the new offence of glorification would catch only those who intended to incite further acts of terrorism. That is important, and it is unobjectionable. But we now find that it catches those who are reckless. That is bad enough, but we then find that recklessness is defined in terms of negligence or carelessness. It is a basic principle of the criminal law that a defendant must have a guilty mind. The fact that a defendant,
	"could not reasonably have failed to be aware",
	of something does not mean that he was aware of it. So in my view, Clause 1(3) must go as well.
	I support Clauses 1(1), 1(2)(a) and the first half of 1(2)(b), which will bring the clause into line with what Mr Clarke originally intended. The fact that they would then add absolutely nothing to the existing law of incitement may perhaps be overlooked.
	I turn to Clause 23. If one starts from the original proposal to detain suspects for three months without charge, it may seem unreasonable to oppose 28 days. But I start from the other end, and I make two brief points. Have the police made out a case for extending the period from 14 days? In my view, they have not. It was not until 2003 that they asked for 14 days, and that was long after the events of 9/11. The reasons they then gave were the usual ones—language difficulties, the need to analyse chemical substances and the problems with hard disks on computers. The reasons they now give for extending the period to 28 days are exactly the same as the reasons they gave in 2003. Not a single matter of substance has been added. If they were therefore content with 14 days in 2003, why are they asking for 28 days now?
	Secondly, I do not see how 28 days can be compatible with Article 5 of the convention. It is said that it will be saved by having a High Court judge look at the case once a week. But there is here the possibility of serious confusion and misunderstanding. Wheeling in a High Court judge will not give Clause 23 the same immunity from Article 5 that the French enjoy, for the system in France is completely different. In France, the judge conducts the investigation, as if the trial had already started. In England, the police conduct the investigation. The sole function of the judge will apparently be to make sure that the police are getting on with the investigation. But that is not a judicial function; it is an administrative function. That is why I recommend that this function should be performed by a magistrate or a district judge and not by a High Court judge. So I regret that here I part company with the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. I do not think the interposition of a judge in this way—any more than the interposition of a judge in the matter of control orders—will make the difference. Of course, 28 days sounds like a sensible compromise. That is not how it will seem, however, to the suspect who has committed no offence, who is detained for 28 days and who is then released without charge.

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, as a general observation on this Bill, I should like to say that, just like the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer, says in his excellent report of 6 October, I have heard the view that there is no need for new terrorism-specific legislation—that the law already has a range of offences which have the potential to counter terrorism. This view, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, points out, had been expressed by some,
	"with profound knowledge of the criminal justice system".
	He comments that that view has been far less in evidence since 7 July and he also says that he disagrees with it. As a non-lawyer, I disagree with it too. I believe that the terrorism threat the UK faces now is of a different level of seriousness and complexity from anything we have faced before, and I shall come back to that later.
	The Government have attempted to build a consensus around legislation, as my noble friend the Minister said in her introduction, in order to give the police the tools they need, and have asked for, to tackle terrorism. They have consulted widely and made significant alterations between first and later drafts. Following the Committee stage in another place, they also made further alterations, including those to narrow the offence of glorification, look at the definition of terrorism, increase the scrutiny of pre-charge detention and impose a sunset clause.
	Briefly, on the question of glorification, Clause 1(1) now makes clear that the offence of glorification can be committed only if a person intends his remarks to be an inducement to terrorism or is reckless as to that possibility. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, says in his review that he found the proposal in its revised form a proportionate response to the real and present danger of young radically minded people being persuaded towards terrorism by apparently authoritative tracts wrapped in a religious, or quasi-religious, context. And he believes that it is human rights-compatible.
	I need to move on, but to answer some of the alarmist fears we have all heard in the media where, in hypothetical situations, entirely innocent people would be caught up in this legislation, I draw your Lordships' attention to the extensive list of defences enumerated in the Bill, which anyone proceeded against can use and be covered by. Those defences are set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 1(7), paragraphs (a) to (c) of Clause 2(8) and in paragraphs (a) to (d) of Clause 2(9). I do not have time to enumerate them but they are in the Bill.
	I now turn to an important part of the Bill with which I profoundly disagree: in Clause 23, the provision that pre-charge detention can be up to 28 days. I firmly believe that this should be 90 days— for many reasons. First, I want to pick up the thread from the beginning of my speech—that the gravity and nature of the terrorist threat differs significantly from anything we have had to deal with before. We are facing fanatics aiming to kill and maim as many people as possible and to sacrifice themselves in the process. Often they are part of a network of complex terrorist organisations with international links, as my noble friend Lady Symons so ably explained in her speech. They are making ever-increasing use of advanced new technology, including computers with encryption, and other new tools of the trade in the ever-changing world of IT.
	The normal procedure of letting plans for a crime run until evidence is accumulated to incriminate the participants must be shortened because no one would dare to risk losing track of a suspect and some terrible terrorist event taking place. The international links mean that there are inevitable delays as those are tracked and are dependent for speed on foreign liaison services—again, as my noble friend Lady Symons explained. Some of those liaison services are less efficient, and some less co-operative, than others. Foreign help is often required to establish accurate identity, in some cases even of those in custody, let alone their contacts.
	The provision of an adequate supply of interpreters and translators to deal with a mountain of work and material also slows the process. As Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman of the Metropolitan Police points out in the impressively detailed attachment to his letter of 6 October to the Home Secretary, it is not just a question of resources, unlike what the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said, because some of those procedures will unavoidably take time. Speaking of the papers supplied by Assistant Commissioner Hayman, which are very much echoed in paragraphs 57 to 60 of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, I must say to those, including the right honourable David Davis and the honourable Dominic Grieve, who say that they do not find those arguments compelling that their definition of the word "compelling" must be different from mine.
	The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, says at paragraph 61:
	"On the basis of my own enquiries and processes as independent reviewer, I am satisfied beyond doubt that there have been situations in which significant conspiracies to commit terrorist acts have gone unprosecuted as a result of the time limitations placed on the control authorities following arrest".
	He concludes in paragraph 62:
	"I share the view that as a maximum three months is probably a practicable and sensible option, all other things being equal. I recommend that the proposal for that maximum should be so regarded".
	I agree and I cannot find that up to a maximum of 90 days' pre-charge detention, with a review every seven days by a senior judge and with a sunset clause, would be an unjustified infringement of civil liberties. I also cannot see how, when you ask the professional experts for their opinion—the Met terrorist experts, ACPO and ACPO Scotland—and they give it, you can override that unless you have overwhelming and compelling reasons to do so. I have heard no such reasons.
	I read in amazement that the shadow Culture Secretary, the honourable Theresa May, is reported to have said last week concerning licensing laws that she hoped that the Government would listen to public opinion and senior police officers. Clearly, public opinion and senior police officers should be listened to only when it suits the Conservative Party. On this most serious of issues, national security, the Government tried to do just that. In my opinion, that was correct and 28 days is wrong. In other respects, I support the Bill.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I know that several noble Lords later in the debate will talk about the great anxiety in university libraries regarding Clause 2. I want specifically to ask the Minister whether the Government have looked properly at the problems for the few universities that have specialist departments for the study of terrorism.
	In a powerful speech at Third Reading, my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke took the terrorist threat very seriously. But he, as I think did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, suggested that the Bill adds little, if anything, to our present legal protection. He said,
	"at heart I still suspect that this is gesture politics, padded out with measures to make it look more convincing".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/05; col. 521.]
	Whatever one thinks about the rest of the Bill, perhaps that is the cause of the problems of Clause 2. It is put in as padding, with insufficient thought of its side effects.
	The matter was first brought to my attention by a letter from the Vice Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, passed to me by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. The noble and learned Lord is Chancellor of the university but, being a serving Law Lord, feels unable to speak on this somewhat controversial matter. There is great concern at Strathclyde that the wide and uncertain definition of terrorist publications in Clause 2 could lay librarians, and indeed the university's governing body, open to a criminal offence.
	When I contacted the University of St Andrews, it had far greater worries. It has an institute for terrorism studies. Professor Wilkinson of that institute, I was told this morning by a distinguished expert on this matter, is recognised as the foremost non-lawyer expert on terrorism in this country. That is high tribute from a lawyer. Professor Wilkinson and the institute see to it that part of the university library at St Andrews is allocated specifically to material relating to terrorism. In that section are books, journals and video recordings of television programmes, including recordings of Arabic television stations' programmes. In addition, the library is hoping to have deposited with it material from an organisation specialising in Iranian studies.
	All this is obviously a vital resource for important present-day study of what motivates terrorists, how they behave and how events may be shaped in the future. The problem at St Andrews is how, in the face of Clause 2, a librarian will know what material he can legally put into the library. The books and videos most enlightening to the researchers are likely to be precisely those described in Clause 2(2) as terrorist publications,
	"or . . . information of assistance in the commission or preparation of such acts".
	Yet under Clause 2(1), it is a criminal offence to loan or enable others,
	"to obtain, read, listen to or look at such a publication",
	with a penalty of up to seven years' imprisonment on indictment, or six months in Scotland on summary conviction.
	Should a librarian be charged with such an offence, under subsection (8) his defence would be, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, that he had not examined the publication, he did not suspect that it was a terrorist publication and he did not himself agree with it. In the terrorism section of the St Andrews library, a librarian would clearly have examined an item; it would not be in the library if he had not. It might well be on the shelves because it was a terrorist publication: no defence there. On the third point, the Home Secretary has said categorically that those who simply transmit material that does not reflect their views cannot be caught by the Bill. The Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries, along with the British Library and others, have sought legal opinion on this matter. They are told that across all universities, it is likely that the librarian will find the defence in Clause 2 very difficult indeed to maintain. If that is so, I would have thought that at St Andrews it would be virtually impossible.
	When the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, replies to the debate, can she tell the House in responding to this important matter whether in the drafting of Clause 2 the Government have taken properly into account the particular position of libraries at universities which specialise in the study of terrorism? If she cannot give a certain response today, I would be grateful if she would write to me before we reach the Committee stage because I regard this as a very serious matter. I suspect that Clause 2 needs considerable amendment, and if the matter hangs on the redefinition of "terrorism" which the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, is to produce in due course, what on earth is the University of St Andrews to do in the mean time?

Baroness Hayman: My Lords, in introducing the Bill my noble friend on the Front Bench said that we need legislation dealing with terrorism that is comprehensive and up to date. I echo her words. But I also believe that we need legislation that has been scrutinised and honed as finely as possible to ensure that it is as effective and targeted as can be achieved. I hope that we will conduct the further stages of the Bill in exactly that spirit.
	Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, I welcome the creation of the new offence of acts preparatory to terrorism. This proposal, first mooted many years ago, was considered by the Newton committee, of which I was a member, and recommended to the Government. It is very important, particularly in relation to the period of detention before charge, a point to which I shall return in a moment.
	In the context of the powerful speeches made by my noble friends Lady Symons and Lady Ramsay, with whose analysis of the threat, danger and reality of terrorism I agree entirely—we live with the reality of terrorism, not the threat of it—we must also remember the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. At heart we all understand that our greatest assurance of security comes from intelligence gathering by the police and the security services. Once we know about potential perpetrators, the investigative and legislative court procedures fall into place. That is fundamental to our protection.
	But we are legislators and as such we are hard-wired to find a statutory solution to problems. It is part of the parliamentary DNA to do so. It is the weapon for which we reach. When we add to the armoury of powers needed by the police to protect us and when we discharge our duty of making sure that that armoury is fully stocked, we must also recognise that sometimes we do not get it completely right. One point that struck members of the Newton committee as they considered the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was the number of provisions contained in that Act which had never been used. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, recently tabled an interesting Written Question on the use of the Terrorism Act 2000, which was answered on 16 November. The Written Answer reproduced a complicated table of 24 separate offences under the Act. I understand that in the five years since the Act has been in place, there have been some 23 convictions under the range of 24 offences—six appearing on the table in the Written Answer.
	Earlier this year passionate debates were held in this House about the absolutely essential nature of control orders. In October, the Answer to a Written Question on such orders indicated that currently there are only three in use. Some will say that this is because those Acts, those pieces of legislation, are effective as deterrents. We have already discussed, however, that for the particularly virulent and dangerous form of terrorism that we are facing, deterrence is often not a solution.
	We have to ask ourselves whether the ways in which we are legislating are fit for purpose. I welcome charges of acts preparatory to terrorism, because that will be one solution to the problem to which 90 days was the police's answer, which is the difficulty of bringing charges in situations where investigations—as has eloquently been described—take a long time, have great inherent difficulties or cross international jurisdictions. To be able to bring the intermediate, preliminary charge of an act preparatory to terrorism will be enormously helpful to police. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, of the ways it would be possible to continue to investigate, to question if necessary—although I understand questioning is not a lot of good with this particular group of suspects—and to build up a case on potentially more serious charges.
	In the longer term, the answer to this challenging set of circumstances is not to be found in some magic number of days that people are allowed to be detained before charging. We should look again at what was stated in our report and what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, who will speak for himself later, also said, together with what has been quoted, about the possibility of a completely different form of judicial oversight in such cases prior to charging. That would allow confidence in the system, but equally allow the police enough time to build up the case and to protect the public while doing so.
	When the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave evidence to the Constitution Committee of this House a couple of weeks ago, he indicated that he had not in any way ruled out further investigation of that possibility. I believe that it could square the circle of the difficulties that we find ourselves in when wishing to give the police the opportunity to do their job properly, when wishing above all to protect ourselves, our families and our fellow citizens, and, equally, when not wishing to do it by means that would be counterproductive or ineffective.

Baroness Henig: My Lords, first of all I declare an interest as president of the Association of Police Authorities. I have spent the past 16 years working with senior police officers on a broad range of issues. My first point, which I make very strongly, is that throughout that time I have done everything I can to ensure that policing and security issues, at both local and national level, are considered on their merits and not on the basis of party political considerations.
	I confess that I was extremely surprised and disappointed at the partisan tone of some of the discussions on the legislation in the other place. However, I know that your Lordships will share my strong views that we must approach the legislation in a non-partisan way and consider it in the interests of the safety, security and civil rights of all our citizens and communities.
	I must make a second preliminary point. The police have been criticised—unfairly in my view—for giving us the benefit of their professional advice. A former Home Secretary in the other place castigated them on the grounds that they had, in his view, started to lobby for a political position in Parliament. That is precisely the sort of intemperate language that so damagingly politicises the debate on the Bill. We heard echoes here, earlier today, from the Liberal Democrat leader in the House. The police have given their professional opinion on the measures needed to combat terrorism, just as doctors, teachers and other professionals have been asked for the benefit of their expertise on potential legislation in their fields.
	We need experts to give advice but it is surely up to us, as politicians, to decide how much or how little of it to accept. On a number of occasions in the past I have disagreed with senior police officers on one matter or another. We thrashed the issues out—sometimes I stuck to my guns; sometimes I was persuaded to change my mind—but local accountability for policing and the tripartite structure mean that it is local and national politicians who agree the policing strategies and frame the laws, not the police. However, in discharging our responsibilities, we need to listen carefully to what the police and security services are telling us.
	I shall confine myself to commenting on only a few of the provisions in the Bill in order to keep to time. First, I welcome the fact that we are updating our laws to deal with the dangers which now face us in this new century and filling in vital gaps. I am a non-lawyer but some of the provisions on the statute book seem to be hopelessly inadequate to deal with the kinds of crimes which we know are currently being contemplated. For example, is the charge of conspiring to cause a public nuisance adequate to describe the plans of a small number of fanatics aiming to poison our drinking water or the air that we breathe? I particularly welcome the clauses which deal with the threat of nuclear terrorism—a horrendous prospect but, none the less, one which we must take seriously. As many noble Lords have already said, Clause 5, which relates to acts preparatory to terrorism, will cover the early stages of terrorist activities and also cover those people who facilitate the carrying out of terrorist acts.
	This brings me to Clause 23. I have listened carefully to arguments from the Police Service about why it needs extra time to hold terrorist suspects before charges are brought. As my noble friend Lady Ramsay has already pointed out, terrorist suspects may have to be taken into custody at a far earlier stage of proceedings to protect the public. There are then a huge range of tasks that officers have to undertake, which must not be under-estimated, ranging from decryption of computers, other code breaking, analysis of telephone calls, scanning of CCTV footage, searches of premises and vehicles, interviewing of potential witnesses, contact with foreign police and security services, translations and so on. This list of tasks is not imaginary or exaggerated. After July of this year, 80,000 videos of CCTV footage had to be scrutinised, 14,000 fingerprints taken at 160 suspected crime sites, as well as lethal chemicals in a private house made safe, which took two weeks.
	The security services are supporting the police in wanting a longer pre-charge period. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, described 90 days as practicable and sensible. I am struck by the fact that all those people who have had access to security and intelligence information support a pre-charge detention period of far more than 28 days. I find it hard to support 28 days for the simple reason that I am not clear what logic lies behind it. In the other place, the mover of the proposal for 28 days, when questioned on this very point, replied that it was double the existing 14 days and that is why he chose it. But that is not good enough to counter the strong arguments coming from the police.
	There are three further arguments for 28 days or less that I have heard, all of which I respect. These are that detention for longer without charge could radicalise young Muslims, in particular, and make ethnic communities less likely to supply vital community intelligence to the police; that it will fatally undermine civil liberties built up in this country painstakingly over centuries; and that it is the maximum period many people think is not likely to be contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. I respect all those arguments.
	However, I have to set against them the chilling warning from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as we have already heard, that under present time limitations, significant conspiracies to commit terrorist acts have gone unprosecuted and that this is not in the public interest. I do not know, but I fear, that in the past year potential terrorists may have been in police hands and then released into the community because the police did not have long enough to build up a case against them. This is likely to be the case with 28 days, which is why I find it hard to support. As a large number of people have said to me over the past few weeks, "We have human rights too: not to be blown up or injured in a terrorist attack". Governments therefore have to do everything possible to protect the public, and, on all the evidence I have heard, 28 days' detention—in the case of a very small number of suspected terrorists—will not be long enough.
	I would not go to the stake for 90 days, but I believe an absolute minimum of 60 days is necessary for public protection. It needs to be emphasised that we are talking about a small number of cases, and that a High Court judge needs to agree that the time extension is justified on a week-by-week basis. All of us have to make difficult judgments about where the balance now lies between civil liberties on the one hand and public protection on the other. My judgment, in the face of the deadly threats facing us, is that Clause 23 does not at present strike that balance. I am deeply concerned about it, and I hope other noble Lords will agree with me that we should try hard to persuade the other place to think again.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has put one side of the case strongly and eloquently. Let me say to her, because I am sure she accepts this, that none of us can for one moment support the capricious, cruel activities of terrorists that have destroyed the lives of a great many people, and will doubtless destroy the lives of others. The problem the House confronts is, quite straightforwardly, how far we go in destroying the liberties we have enjoyed for centuries in an effort to stop terrorism, and, in doing that, how far we would give the terrorists exactly what they want.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, talked about the amount of consultation around this Bill. I believe that the Home Secretary indeed tried to consult, and wanted to create a consensus. That consensus began to come under great strain, however, and colleagues in the House will remember that he spoke in another place about an attempt to reach a compromise on—at that time—the huge issue of 90 days, not long after the Prime Minister effectively indicated in his press conference of 5 August that he did not wish to pursue the issue of consultation further. It would have been immensely helpful if the Prime Minister had thrown his weight behind the arguments for consensus and consultation, but I think any fair-minded person would have to agree that at a certain point he ceased to do so.
	As for the point about the representations made by the police, of course I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that the police are completely free to indicate their views about legislation. As a former Home Office Minister I recall their doing so. I cannot actually recall any previous instance where chief inspectors rang up Members of Parliament personally to advocate the way they should vote on measures before the House. That, to say the least, is very unusual. It crosses a boundary that, on reflection, may not turn out to be absolutely wise.
	Several of my noble friends and law-makers from elsewhere have talked about Clause 1 and later clauses in the Bill. I want to address Clauses 2 and 3 in particular. They were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, but deserve a little further investigation.
	The associations of librarians were not consulted about the Bill. They wrote to the Home Office on 26 and 31 October, pointing out the grave dangers they saw in the proposed legislation. They did not receive a reply at that point. They then sought to reach their own sponsoring department, the Department of Culture, Sport and the Media. The DCMS, addressed by them on 31 October, referred them to the Home Secretary, and did not itself take up the cause. It is only later today that the library associations will meet the Home Secretary. He is a very busy man, but that still does not quite explain why his own department did not go in great detail into the implications of Clauses 2 and 3.
	Let me spell them out. Those implications are that any librarian and any lecturer in a university might be criminalised. Those are not just the idle thoughts of a spineless Liberal; they are based on very senior legal opinion. Phrases such as "dissemination", "examination" and "endorsement" could be wrapped up with the legislation that already precisely defines the duties of librarians and university librarians and it has not, as far as I know, been repealed.
	The legislation affecting the British Library, the British Library Act 1972—which I know about because I was much connected with the foundation of that library—places a clear duty on the library to promote knowledge and to give assistance to those who wish to have access to documents, publications and other forms of information. The Act is quite clear and it is further strengthened by the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, which laid on publishers an obligation to provide, and on particular libraries—among which are the British Library and certain university libraries—an absolute obligation to accept, publications which were, by law, required to be given to those libraries. It is not clear from the drafting of the Bill—I am not a lawyer, but I have consulted those who are—whether, for example, receiving, by law, a publication which appears to advocate, sponsor or support terrorism would be treated for these purposes as an examination. It is not clear whether, when the library in question catalogues that publication, this does not constitute endorsement. The drafting of this legislation is terrifyingly weak and terrifyingly far-reaching. It could indeed mean that our universities will be profoundly restricted in their first and overwhelming obligation, which is to find knowledge and pursue truth.
	I shall give one example of the ways in which other countries have dealt with this matter. I do not think, with respect, that even the strongest supporters of this legislation would be able very easily to deny that the United States has pursued these matters with great determination and firmness. The USA Patriot Act of 2001 precisely indicates that, in the case of the dissemination of publications and legislation affecting universities and others, the First Amendment to the US Constitution stands supreme. Nothing can interfere with it. It is of course the amendment which states that there shall be freedom of speech and that this is a sacred duty. So in the United States, despite all its passionate feelings about terrorism, which it certainly holds as strongly anyone in this House or another place, nothing can affect the freedom of speech and expression.
	So instead of executing a wide sweep and attempting to restrain and limit what universities can teach and what librarians can disseminate, as we are doing, the United States concentrates entirely on the rights of government to obtain records about their loaning and their reading habits from librarians. The First Amendment is so strong that it is worth quoting. It states that disclosure of communications or customer records to a government entity, unless it is voluntary, is permissible only,
	"if the provider reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person justifies disclosure of the information".
	Ironically, earlier today, a Question was asked about the importance of overseas students' attendance at British universities. If one has a choice between a country whose universities are able to provide publications, are able to give lecturers freedom—subject only to the rights of the FBI to establish whether there have been publications which advocate specific forms of terrorism during the investigation of a terrorist offence—would one be likely to go somewhere else where the restraints are as tight, as vague and as extensive as are parts of this Terrorism Bill?
	We could destroy our finest institutions if we do not manage to frame this legislation much more tightly, much more specifically and much more closely in ways that would make charges actually stand up.
	There is one other feature that I want to mention, which I believe to be very serious. Clause 2, as the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegie of Lour, indicated, shifts the balance of proof entirely from the traditional right of someone to be considered innocent until proved guilty. It turns that around by 180 degrees. Guilt is established unless the defendant can show that he or she is not guilty. For a librarian or a lecturer in a university, the defence conditions are virtually impossible to meet. That again is a reflection of serious legal opinion that these defences would be virtually useless in an individual case.
	I beg noble Lords that, in the interests of putting on the statute book a law which is robust, which is clear, which means what its says, and which both protects our liberties and isolates terrorists in a way that makes our actions against them effective, it is crucial that the House of Lords undertakes the scrutiny, examination and careful inspection that is its birthright and that, with great respect, even, I think, the Prime Minister, despite his unwise threats to us, should surely understand.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, I start with a confession. I have had a secret admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, since she was Labour Secretary of State for Education. At that time, two young student leaders, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and myself, confronted her on overseas students fees. I still have that admiration for her, although I confess that I have come to a different conclusion in relation to this debate.
	We all recall the horror, the tragic loss of life, the maiming and the grief of the London bombings on 7 July. Or do we really? Sometimes it is far too easy for the rest of us to move on. Our lives move on and so do we, for the bombs did not hit the barristers' chambers of the Inns of Court, the dining rooms of Islington or Hampstead, or, indeed, the Palace of Westminster, but ordinary working people going about their everyday business on buses and underground trains. The lives of Muslims as well as Christians and non-believers were shattered or destroyed on 7 July. As the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, rightly said, some people—lobbyists and lawyers—go on and on about human rights as if they did not apply equally, if not more, to the victims and the accused. They argue that we are no better than the terrorists if we infringe the human rights of terrorist suspects. Terrorists are laughing at us as they exploit such freedoms for their campaigns of terrorism, for Britain and London in particular have for too long been the main bases of terror organisations, and we have been subjected to criticism by other countries for allowing that to be the case.
	I can understand the woolly-minded liberals objecting to provisions in the Bill. I cannot remember them supporting any provisions to deal with terrorists that have been brought forward by the Labour Government in the past eight years. But I do not understand Labour Members opposing the Bill, and I do not understand the Conservatives doing so, given their history and traditions.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, does the noble Lord not understand that, for example, we were advocating an offence of preparation for terrorism, such as that included in Clause 5 of the Bill, long before it was government policy to do so?

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, I accept that and I look forward to the noble Lord's contribution at the end of the debate. No doubt he will correct me and other noble Lords if we make any other apparent errors.
	I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, and others that we need to give the police and security services the necessary powers. I also accept what others have said about the safeguards. As my noble friend Lady Henig said, whether the detention period is 14, 28, 60 or 90 days is to some extent arbitrary. As my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale said in her compelling speech, more time is needed with the high-tech, sophisticated terrorists and the huge volume of tapes, paper, intercepts or transcripts that need to be dealt with. That has not been answered by anyone on the other side of the argument.
	Whatever the length of detention, the key safeguard, which has been mentioned today but not sufficiently in the past, is that there will be a judicial review every seven days—in Scotland by a judge of the Court of Session. I disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. I think this matter must be considered at a higher level. The accused can be held for another period of seven days only if it is approved by that judge. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, has said—perhaps he might have said it a little earlier—only two or three people would be held for up to 90 days. The notion that large numbers of people are going to be rounded up and held incommunicado for 90 days, as some have implied, is nonsense. It is a scare story put about by some of the opponents of the Bill.
	Some people, as my noble friend Lady Henig said, are playing politics with this issue—a dangerous game. They want to inflict a defeat on the Government, or the Prime Minister, for other reasons. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, seemed obsessed by the Prime Minister in his speech. Again and again he mentioned the Prime Minister as if he were the only person advocating 90 days. If the noble Lord, Lord McNally, were still a member of the Labour Party and had been at the parliamentary Labour Party meeting that I attended, he would have heard that the call came from Member after Member, representing constituency after constituency, throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister was responding to that. I regret to say that the Tories, with the Liberal Democrats and the Labour rebels, opportunistically opposed him deliberately to seek a pyrrhic victory in the House of Commons. I hope that Conservatives here today will think differently.
	I would like to restore the 90-day provision. If that amendment were put down, I would certainly support it. I welcome what my noble friend Lady Henig said about this House being given an opportunity to consider the option of 60 days as well. Then we could have a proper discussion about what the period should be.
	I found the most regrettable part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, his description of the lobbying by the police as "improper". It was grossly unfortunate that he said that. They are not the only ones who lobby the Houses of Parliament. I did not find anything improper in it. I tell the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, that in my 26 years as a Member of Parliament I have been phoned by members of the constabulary in Ayrshire, the Chief Constable and inspectors about particular issues again and again, and rightly so. As my noble friend Lady Henig said, if teachers and lawyers can do it, then the police should certainly be able to do so as well.
	I fervently hope—and no doubt the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark will pray—that we are spared any atrocities which might have been avoided if the police and the security services had been given the time that some of us want to give them.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I wholeheartedly support the proposed maximum of 90 days' detention, given that, as has been said, it is to be reviewed weekly by judicial process. Terrorists have become infinitely more sophisticated, and it is simply not practical to expect the police and the relevant specialists to act in so short a time as at present proposed. Much of the evidence, including computers, can be gathered only after the arrest and must be analysed and decrypted. To quote the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, from whom we shall hear later, translations of some of the manuscript material will be,
	"in languages for which quality interpretative services are at a premium".
	He too supports the 90 day proposal for many other equally cogent reasons. We are not talking about more time for the police to interview suspects—some of whom may simply exercise their right to silence anyway—but to analyse and identify evidence to which the police will have access only after the arrest.
	It is, incidentally, unrealistic to argue that the police should build up their case through surveillance. As I remember, it takes 30 people—three shifts of 10—to provide complete coverage of a targeted suspect. If and when those suspects come from a particular community, the surveillance team has to be able to blend into the neighbourhood and into their daily lives. We should think of that as a need that is not easy to satisfy. The police and security services are therefore likely to be dependent on evidential material which becomes available only after arrest. To quote the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—I am sorry that I am doing it once more—
	"significant conspiracies to commit terrorist acts have gone unprosecuted as a result of the time limitations placed on the control authorities following arrest",
	and they have sometimes been forced to pre-empt a known threat by such an arrest. They need the time to analyse the often voluminous evidence rather than to pursue prolonged interrogation. I cannot see how that can put the detainees under unacceptable pressure. I quote the noble Lord, Lord Desai, speaking in this House on 10 March:
	"How many deaths would noble Lords balance against the incarceration of one or two innocent people before they changed their minds?"
	He went on,
	"I respect those who say 'I would lose x amount of lives for the protection of one person's liberty'".—[Official Report, 10/3/05; col. 1005.]
	But he doubted whether such certainty could be right.
	My second point concerns the issue of glorification, and the double standards which the Government continue to apply in the context of terrorism in Northern Ireland. This Terrorism Bill is, however, to cover the whole United Kingdom. The Government are therefore, I hope, committed to applying this legislation to the IRA, which daily glorifies its past actions and is still recruiting the young. The Prime Minister has rightly said that glorifying terrorism abroad would equally be an offence. I hope that Clause 17 will catch those IRA supporters who have fled to the US and have been aiding, abetting, funding and procuring arms for the IRA, as well as catching the new breed of Islamic terrorists.
	Under the legislation for the disappeared, which produced a pitiful three bodies, Her Majesty's Government allowed the IRA to describe its murders as executions. HMG now intend, after praising the IRA for renouncing its arms—after seven years of false promises—to allow known murderers who fled the country before 1998 to escape justice and to return. After that, there is to be a form of judicial process, but these people will not even be required to attend the court, and they will then be free on licence. The Government say that it is not an amnesty but that is what it looks like to the victims of their murderous hate. How does that square with the Bill? Is this Terrorism Bill for the whole of the UK or not?
	I believe that, as well as prosecuting those who glorify murder, we should be ending the culture of respect for them which now obtains. It is not right that we should be failing to understand the aversion which all decent people, including their own communities, feel for those who murder and claim that it is in the name of a religion or a political cause. The Independent Monitoring Commission in Northern Ireland has always argued that it is wrong to give any respect to those who reject the rule of law, as Sinn Fein/IRA repeatedly does and as the new breed of terrorists in this country do. We should apply the maxim generally.
	Whichever community our new terrorists come from, those communities will be glad to be able to demonstrate that they, too, disown the violence done, in some cases, in the name of their religion or sect. It is not acceptable that, as in the case of Sinn Fein/IRA, its leaders should be allowed repeatedly to refuse to recognise British justice or to allow men accused of crimes in their community to come to court, as in the McCartney case in Northern Ireland, with impunity. It is equally reprehensible for an apparently respectable senior member of the Muslim community to say that in any conflict between duty as a British citizen to respect the law and duty to a putative Islamic world state, loyalty to the latter should come first.
	As the Prime Minister has also said, one basic liberty is the right to life of our citizens and freedom from terrorism. I am sure that those whom the IRA paramilitaries have exiled—and whose right to return to their community Martin McGuinness does not recognise—would agree. I hope that Clause 1 will bring in much needed justice, including, since it covers the past, retrospective justice for Omagh, for the McCartney family and for the families and of the disappeared.
	The Prime Minister said of this latest terrorist activity in July that it is,
	"of a wholly different order from anything we have faced before in this country".
	We saw, he says, that these people were prepared to kill more than 50 innocent people—it could have been 500—and to rejoice in that. Where was he when the IRA bombed Brighton, Birmingham, Guildford and Canary Wharf? It is, however, reassuring that this new breed of terrorists is to be treated with rigour, and that we should not allow mistaken respect for their point of view to cloud our judgment.

Lord Morris of Aberavon: My Lords, this Terrorism Bill is the Government's fourth counter-terrorism Bill in five years. I start off from the premise that, if the need is there, it has my support. But measures, in the absence of a consensus, can run into difficulty, as this Bill has.
	The overwhelming need is to preserve the balance between the liberty of the subject and the need for the rest of us not only to have our liberties but our lives preserved. I am sure that this would be the approach of the families of the victims of the July bombings.
	The duty of balancing is for us in Parliament. There are two controversial parts of the Bill: first, the period of detention without charge; and, secondly, the revised offence of glorifying terrorism. Despite the way the first has been handled, and I pity the Home Secretary who has sought to take the blame, I was inclined to support the Government in their proposal to detain without charge for up to 90 days, provided they could get over the objections of Article 5 of the Human Rights Act. Perhaps I may say in passing that encouraging chief constables to campaign for the 90 days is not the right way of doing things. My local chief constable is reported as saying "It would not be appropriate". A line must be drawn between what is right and what is not right, and sometimes that is difficult without a written constitution. I suspect that many would agree that reproducing letters drafted by the Home Secretary must cause just a little raising of an eyebrow.
	I bear in mind the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. Although I reached the conclusion that the case for the desired 90 days was not proved, I was prepared to give the Government the benefit of the doubt, particularly as there is now weekly supervision after 14 days by a High Court judge and the sunset clause. I fear that the 28 days passed by the other place is too short for a few important cases. In an age of international terrorism—with the tentacles of crime extending well beyond our shores, different jurisdictions, the problems of translation and of computer networks, the multiplicity of SIM cards for mobiles phones running into hundreds and many names for the same person—the case for extending the period of detention without charge is formidable.
	One factor that has fortified my views more than anything is that, following surveillance, the need for a much earlier arrest than before, if the wrongdoer is to be stopped in his tracks before he causes mayhem, is imperative. If he slips the gathering noose before enough evidence to charge him is available, it could be too late and the deed would have been done. The extra time may be needed to fill out the gaps in the evidence. It is not the case of a simple murder that is being investigated. There is no magic in the figure of 90—90 days is unproven, as a figure. It could be 42, 60 or even 90. I believe that there should be more than 28 days in those few important cases. Why we cannot have a code of practice, with proper safeguards for allowing wider questioning after charge than the present arrangements, baffles me.
	Neither do I accept the Government's stance against the use of intercept evidence in court. I understand that the United Kingdom is the only country, other than Ireland, to have an absolute prohibition in place. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, has given his views in the strongest of terms.
	The Joint Committee on Human Rights has given its support, subject to safeguards. Public interest decisions on evidence are taken every day in our criminal courts by our judges, even by a mere recorder, as I was for 20 years or more. They have to consider the position, and, if they hold against the Crown, then the Crown has to consider its own position. Why should there be a blanket position in the world that we are now living in?
	I now come to the new offence of glorifying the commission of acts of terrorism, past, present or future, which other people may understand as direct or indirect encouragement to similar acts. A judge will have to direct the jury as to the ingredients of this offence. There is no time for me to set out before this House the kind of direction that I had prepared, but I believe that a jury will not find it all that easy—I refer to the test of recklessness and the problems of indirect incitement. The only comfort I draw is that in the original draft Bill there were other options of "celebrating" or "exalting", whatever that may mean, terrorism. In Clause 20(2) the definition of "glorification" includes,
	"any form of praise or celebration, and cognate expressions".
	What a catch-all definition! Example after example has been given in another place of conduct that might be considered questionable, from Mandela to Palestine and, nearer home, Ireland. What are we likely to achieve, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, again,
	"by creating a criminal offence out of something that is just too vague and uncertain"?
	I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, that certainty is a fundamental requirement of our criminal law.
	Incitement to commit terrorism is already covered by a range of criminal offences. What is the need for a fresh offence, so poorly drafted and, on the floor of the court, not all that easy to prove? That is my view, having spent most of my life in the criminal courts.
	Why have those one or two who now preach hate not been arrested by the existing law? I know there are difficulties of collecting evidence, but do the authors of this Bill believe that it is more likely to prosecute under these new provisions?
	A junior Minister in the other place said that she had been asked to speculate on what kind of phrase might make people fall foul of the new provision. The only example she could give, "comfortably" she said, was where someone said:
	"'Wasn't it a fantastic thing that happened on 7 July',"—[Official Report, Commons, 9/11/05; col. 392.]
	knowing that the likely effect would be to encourage their audience in acts of terrorism. Really, is this the best that can be said on behalf of the Bill? Would members of any congregation rush out and plan acts of terrorism on that basis? Most English juries I have known, in a long life, are more hard-bitten than that.
	If the existing law is not strong enough to encompass the worse and most obvious acts of encouragement, I suggest to the Government that they should go back to the drawing board. I would then listen carefully to what the need is, and what more appropriate proposals to deal with them were before us.
	At the moment, I am certainly not with the Government on this issue. The Minister said in another place that we must have "practical, effective and workable legislation"—this clause is not.

Baroness Cox: My Lords, in general I welcome the Bill's measures to contain terrorism. My concern is whether it is too late, and perhaps even too limited. For example, as long ago as August 1999, a film on Channel 4 showed two leading Islamists, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed and Abu Hamza al-Masri lecturing to a large crowd in Friends' Meeting House in London. They proclaim that they do not believe in the law of this land but only in the law of Allah, and describe how they will kill us "kaffirs". Then, more seriously, they teach terrorist tactics, such as how to put up anti-aircraft nets with balloons and explosives, and how to bring down aircraft coming into London airports. An explosives expert is asked whether this is feasible, and his answer is yes. Those two militant leaders emphasise that that is only one example and urge every man present in the hall to go away and devise a similar terrorist tactic himself because it is jihad in this country—kill or be killed.
	That was long before 9/11. How many young men and women have since been inspired by those two leaders to develop terrorist tactics to use in this country when the time is ripe? How many have gone abroad to learn the militaristic tactics of jihad in jihads elsewhere? Why did it take so long for Abu Hamza and Sheikh Bakri Muhammed to be contained and why were they allowed to continue teaching terrorism in this country for so many years?
	I reluctantly return to an issue that I have repeatedly raised, but to which I have had no satisfactory answer from the Government or the relevant authorities. On 12 January 2000 I was speaking in your Lordships' House about that film and about the teaching of terrorist activities in this country when unprecedented interference to the microphones drowned my voice. The interference ceased 10 seconds before the end of my speech. It is entirely compatible with some kind of jamming. I was advised by the authorities here that it was caused by "a faulty microphone", but I have since been advised that a thorough investigation showed no problems with the sound system, leaving as the only plausible explanation that it was intentional interference by someone with inside access.
	I took independent advice from international experts whose analysis I am willing to make available. They robustly disagreed with the replies that I had been given. They claimed that the only technically feasible and statistically reasonable explanation was that it was an inside job. They pointed out that such jamming is easy to achieve and that it demonstrates the ability to penetrate the security of Parliament, shows contempt for democracy, was a specific threat to me, and a general threat to anyone who dares to speak critically about Islamists.
	Having failed to elicit any serious response from authorities here, my concern was renewed by a newspaper report in the Sunday Times on 30 July 2000 entitled:
	"Commons Security Firm Run By Terror Suspect".
	Some excerpts are relevant, such as:
	"A Sudanese businessman who has been linked by the American CIA to the world's most wanted terrorist is the leading shareholder in a company that provides security systems to the House of Parliament . . . Salah Idris, 48, whose pharmaceutical factory in Sudan was flattened by American cruise missiles after it was linked to Osama Bin Laden . . . owns 25 per cent of IES, a company specialising in high-technology surveillance and security management".
	The article claims that that firm also provided such equipment to New Scotland Yard, British Airways, Texaco and other blue chip firms.
	I cannot comment on the allegations that Salah Idris has links with terrorism, but his ownership of the pharmaceutical factory demonstrates his close relationship with the Islamist regime in Khartoum.
	When Parliament resumed, I tabled a Written Question. The reply on 9 October 2000 confirmed Salah Idris's involvement in that firm. It admitted that the firm also installed surveillance equipment in the Royal Courts of Justice and provided digital playback systems for New Scotland Yard, but that Salah Idris had no day-to-day involvement in running the firm.
	I put the matter, if not my mind, to rest until, after the horrors of 9/11, a journalist informed me that Salah Idris had increased his shareholding to 75 per cent. An article in the Observer on 14 October 2001 confirmed that and quotes the marketing manager of IES saying:
	"We provide security for some of the most sensitive sites in the UK, right up to government Ministers and the Army".
	A subsequent article in the Observer on 4 November 2001 revealed that Salah Idris also held a 20 per cent stake in the security firm Protec. The article states:
	"Salah Idris . . . has multi-million pound investments in two British security firms through a secretive offshore company. These firms act as security consultants and supply security systems at 11 nuclear installations in the UK, including Dounreay and Sellafield. They also have security contracts with some of Britain's top potential terrorist targets, including Canary Wharf, the House of Commons and Army bases. The companies would have highly sensitive details of all the facilities where they install equipment".
	I shall repeat the two questions that I have asked before, for which for four years I have received no satisfactory answer. They are germane to the Bill and to its wider implications. First, does either existing or proposed legislation provide protection against financial penetration of and influence in UK institutions of key political military and strategic significance?
	Secondly, as Oliver Letwin in another place asked when he was shadow Home Secretary:
	"In the current climate, people will be rightly concerned about the Observer's allegations, which raise very serious questions. They require an urgent response. Either the Government cleared Mr Idris of any wrongdoing, or they should launch an immediate investigation".
	Before concluding, I point to similar concerns demonstrated by Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld, expert on financial institutions and director of the American Center for Democracy, and her analysis of an American security firm, Ptech. That firm develops enterprise blueprints at the highest level of US Government and corporate infrastructure, which hold every important functional, operational and technical detail of the enterprise. Ptech's clients in 2001 included the US Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, Customs, Air Force, the White House, IBM, Sysco, Motorola and many others.
	She claims that examples of information gathered by using Ptech's capabilities would include: a complete blueprint of a nuclear waste disposal site; the security procedures required to access military bases during transfer of nuclear waste materials; details of security rules and procedures; and specifications for Smartcards as implemented in various defence facilities, which could be used to make templates for unauthorised production of fake Smart IDs for potential use by terrorists.
	Ptech's Middle East branch, called Horizons, received projects directly from Ptech and is used to outsource projects for Ptech's clients. They include the Saudi Bin Laden Company and the Afghan-based BTC—Bin Laden Telecom. Among Ptech's top investors and management in 2001 was Yassin al-Qadi who was listed as a specially designated global terrorist on 12 October 2001.
	Rachel Ehrenfeld continues with a long list, and concludes, as do I, with a question. She asks:
	"How could a small, Saudi-based company with questionable terrorist connections obtain significant government and business contracts . . . even more importantly, are there other Ptechs around?".
	I do not comment on Rachel Ehrenfeld's disturbing analysis, but I echo her questions. Does the Bill ensure that terrorists are not using their money to buy into our national infrastructure to undermine our economy and security from within? Does it adequately provide measures to prevent such infiltration? I hope that the Minister will answer those questions and provide assurances on those serious issues.

Lord Soley: My Lords, it may be something of an understatement to describe the previous speech as intriguing, but I shall leave it to the Minister as I do not have an answer to those questions.
	For many years I have not been alone in struggling with the difficult question of how to confront and defeat terrorism, while at the same time defend our civil liberties and protect the rights of minorities who get caught in the net and become easy recruits for terrorism, wherever it may be. I am not alone in having been through that, and all of us from time to time have adjusted our positions.
	An important message to give to people outside is that the Bill is not internment, which locked up thousands of people without a release date being set, judicial input, or the police or security services having to record the interviews either by audio or visual means. Exactly the same applies to the Prevention of Terrorism Act as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. Then, up to 6,000 people a year were being detained for seven days without access even to a solicitor, never mind a judge, and were being held without access to the audio or visual tapes that are now kept by the police. Incidentally, that is where some of the wrongful convictions to which the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, referred came from. Indeed, one of them was of a person known to me in the Guildford case when I was a probation officer. She was held under that provision and released. The fascinating thing about her was that she was held for seven days without access to a solicitor. At the beginning of those seven days, she was denying that she had committed the offence; at the end, she was admitting it. That is not because she was brutally treated; as she would concede and has said since, she was a confused and mixed-up young girl on drugs and was therefore easily caught in that sort of net.
	The other thing that it is important to understand is that we began to get more sophisticated in our handling of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, in particular, but also internment. I was never in my career the chairman of the 1922 Committee, so I cannot be too sure of my facts here, but I suspect that both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, who will speak next and, possibly, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, knew that the numbers that we were pulling in under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and internment were providing easy recruits for the paramilitaries. At its height, the use of exclusion orders under the Prevention of Terrorism Act totalled about 250 people a year excluded from one part of the United Kingdom to another. In my view, later supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, in his report on the Prevention of Terrorism Act, that constituted internal exile—something that we had not had since the days of Henry VIII.
	So we must watch our language: things have changed dramatically for the better. That is why many of us have been able to consider things differently now. I am sad to have to say this, but I say to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that he is very unwise to have adduced the position of the Liberal Party, because throughout the 1980s, when the party wanted to position itself to the right of the Labour Party politically, it supported both those Acts without any of the safeguards that we now have. Now that, for what I regard as rather daft political reasons, the party wants to position itself to the left of us, they are opposed to the Bill. That is a classic case of what people expect in this country: the Tory Party to drive on the right, the Labour Party to drive on the left and the Liberals again saying that it is entirely an optional matter which side of the road to drive on, it depends on the weather. That is not a very sensible stance.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for whose comments I shall wait with some interest, said, and in my view thanks to the final few years of the Conservative government under John Major and to the present Government, Britain now has more protection for defendants than most other countries. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that the United States is about the worst model that we can follow. At present, the United States tries to catch people outside its jurisdiction and hold them out there. That is unacceptable.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way?

Lord Soley: My Lords, I am not sure whether I get injury time here, but I shall give way nevertheless.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, it is a very quick point. Does the noble Lord agree that I was talking specifically about dissemination of publications and universities? I agree with every word that he said about how the United States treats people outside its country.

Lord Soley: My Lords, I understand that, but some of the people whom it is trying to hold outside are people whom it thinks are disseminating information, so the matter is not as clear-cut as it seems. However, I understand and accept the point that the noble Baroness makes.
	For rather different reasons than have been given by others in this debate, I agree that the issue of glorification is difficult. I think that most of us know the intense feeling about some statements made by some people in one particular mosque in north London. That provokes people massively, to the extent that two mosques in my constituency when I was still a Member of the Commons also complained bitterly about what was being said in that mosque and wanted action taken against it, even before the terrorist attacks.
	The danger in addressing that is the Government have drawn up this glorification provision, which will not be used very much. As I think that my noble friend Lady Scotland will tell us when she replies, prosecution depends on either the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General or both deciding to go ahead. So the chance of a librarian being charged under that is very slight. The danger is that we will not use the provision and people will still feel that things are being said outside that are unacceptable and unforgivable. Another part of me feels that I would rather have those people out in the open where I can see them. I rather suspect that the security services might. As the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, said, they are often just loud mouths, but those who go to listen to them may be a bit more involved, so it can be useful to know them. I also want to address the issue of 28 days briefly but in a wider context because I suspect that we now have the worst of all worlds—again, I shall listen to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with interest. It is probably true to say that 28 days is not enough if we are to go down that road. In seven days, a person will often have confessed. If they have not confessed in seven to 10 days, they are unlikely to. The reason for a longer period is not so much about questioning as about searching computer databases and, above all, obtaining information from overseas. I end with this final suggestion to the Government. I do not think that we can solve the problem in one fell swoop, we must keep working at it.
	I think that the time has come to recognise that what we have started with control orders in this country and now with the Bill is a significant step down the road used in several European countries of holding people while investigating under the investigating magistrate system. In the Bill and with control orders, we put a judge in charge—which is absolutely right—who is then to question people on a weekly basis to ask how the process is going and whether we still need to hold a person. He can hear the person in their own defence. That is not dissimilar to what is done in continental Europe. I do not recommend that we go down the French road, where they hold people for up to four years. That is appalling. But there may be a way forward here in the longer term—not in the Bill, I accept—by recognising that we have adopted part of the continental system for this narrow area of terrorism and adapted it to our needs. I am not sure that, in the long run, it would not be better if we tried to reach a balance and recognise that we are doing that and that we do so only for terrorism and no other offence. I do not suggest the importation of continental law into Britain, but the case for doing that for terrorism is very strong.
	Sadly, we will not be able to leave these debates behind us for some years yet, I suspect, but it is important that we never give up focusing on the difficult balance between the three aspects of civil liberties, the rights of minorities and the need to defeat terrorism. If we get those right, I suggest that we start to consider in a more strategic, long-term way bringing an aspect of continental law into our law in a way that is unique to this country—and we are quite good at that—to get over some of the hurdles that we have all faced in the past.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, if he will forgive me, I shall not follow the noble Lord, Lord Soley, in his examination of respective party attitudes toward the problem of dealing with terrorism in a free society. That is, in part, because we are where we are. It is a very unpleasant place and a new one in which to find ourselves. Everyone who has spoken in this debate has recognised that we face a new situation today. For example, never in Northern Ireland did we have to face the circumstance of someone not only prepared but determined to blow himself up, with all the consequences of that for making it difficult to keep someone under surveillance and for people to protect the public. Those are too well known for me to need to recite them again now.
	So of course the Government are absolutely entitled—indeed, it is their duty—to review their legislative array, our legislative array, to see how best they can ensure, among other things, that people are kept safe. That is the first duty of any government.
	It is of course right—as a number of your Lordships have made clear—that the rights of victims and potential victims need to be supported just as much as the rights of those who are suspects and who are subject to criminal justice procedures.
	The excellent debates in the other place and those that we have had so far in this House have focused naturally upon the balance that has to be struck. We know what that balance is: the balance between preserving liberties long fought for and the right on the other hand to take all practical steps to protect people. If there is any common ground that has come out of the debates—both here and in the other place—it is this: while this is no time to be tenderly fastidious, it is also no time to succumb to tunnel vision, seeing only one side of the argument and not both.
	I hope to touch upon four issues which can be sensibly tested against that formulation. The first is the question of detention without charge—the 90 days issue; the second is encouragement of terrorism; the third is the extra-territorial jurisdiction that this Bill gives to us; and the fourth, if I have time, is the question of attendance at a place of terrorist training for which, according to Clause 8, no defence at all is afforded.
	With regard to the 90 days issue I agree entirely with what was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. That speech will repay careful reading in Hansard—it reflected very fairly the painful and contrasting considerations that fall to all of us in dealing with this matter. I would not have ruled out 40 days had there been an absolutely compelling case made clearly and with particularity by the police.
	I joined other Members of your Lordships' House and of the other place at a meeting in Portcullis House addressed by Mr Hayman with the utmost frankness and in a manner inspiring the utmost confidence in his integrity. But I did not come away from that meeting with the feeling that 90 days had been calculated as being a period vital to the protection of our fellow countrymen. It was obviously his first and best preference but no more than that. I would need to be more persuaded than I am of the case for 90 days. I find myself in the same position as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, in that regard. Equally I would not need much persuasion to hold that more than 28 days was legitimate in these circumstances and I do not think that would be to be tenderly fastidious.
	As to encouragement, there remains in the Bill—which although much improved—something which in this context savours of a tunnel vision. That is the scope of the offence of encouragement of terrorism which is at the head of the Bill, in Clause 1. This offence is copiously drafted in no fewer than 64 lines of text and it attracts imprisonment of up to seven years. Yet as drafted, there can be a conviction without any proof of a culpable mental element having been present. This was touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.
	I have no quarrel at all with the provision that it can be committed if the defendant is "reckless", provided that that word is properly understood—the definition can be found in Clause 1(2). It is the subsequent provision in Clause 1(3) of what is reckless that does the mischief. It adopts the test that was recently and specifically disapproved unanimously by the Judicial Committee of your Lordships' House in the case of Regina v G in 2004—a case concerning the Criminal Damage Act 1971. What appears in this Bill is not the subjective test of a defendant's state of mind which simple fairness surely requires for any serious offence carrying a substantial period of imprisonment as a possibility because he is found to have been reckless, but instead the test is objective—importing the concept of what he could not reasonably have failed to be aware of. I would respectfully suggest that that goes plumb against most people's ideas of fairness.
	As such it offends—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, the senior Law Lord pointed out—against the salutary principle,
	"that conviction of serious crime should depend on proof that . . . [the defendant's] state of mind when . . . acting was culpable".
	Clause 1(3) fails that test.
	The third issue is extra-territoriality—that is the extra-territorial scope of many of the offences created by the Bill. It has been said that a lack of distinction between committing a terrorist act against some tyrannical regime and doing it against a democracy will be fine. It is all going to be all right because the prosecution must be consented to by the DPP and he cannot do that unless he is permitted to do so by the Attorney-General. That is to bring the Attorney-General very dangerously into a strongly controversial political field. He is of course the guardian of the public interest in our constitutional arrangements, but that is not part of his job and if he is required to do it, it will make what is properly his job much more difficult to do.
	Lastly, for attendance at a place of terrorist training, there is no defence. It is ridiculous, in my respectful submission, if there is no defence for an act that has a 10-year custodial sentence attached to it. Under the Bill, if someone is there he is guilty. But what about, for example, the investigative journalist?
	There is a great deal to applaud in this Bill and it has been applauded very widely. But there is much to be improved and I look forward to a constructive Committee stage in your Lordships' House.

Lord Parekh: My Lords, in the light of the July attacks in London and the knowledge that we have acquired about terrorist methods and networks, a Bill such as this is needed and I have no general difficulty with it. But I do have four sources of unease and I should like to spend the next five or so minutes articulating them.
	I have some difficulty with the whole idea of detention without charge for 28 days or more. This kind of detention could traumatise the individuals involved and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, pointed out, it could lead to an enormous amount of injury and psychological damage to the individuals involved. It could also lead to false confessions and to unreliable convictions, as we have known in several cases in the past. There is also the danger that this part of the Bill might be seen as directed at or against Muslims and might therefore alienate them and make intelligence gathering that much more difficult. On this question of intelligence gathering, there is one point that we might need to bear in mind. There is a lot of talk about training a large number of Muslim informants who would act as a source of reliable information about what is going on within the community. I hope that we will tread that path very carefully because, if we are not careful, we could easily create deep areas of discontent and incoherence within the community and even promote violence between Muslims.
	If we do decide to go ahead with 28 days of detention without charge, then I hope that we will bear at least the following points in mind: the conditions under which people are detained; the methods of interrogation that are employed; the right of appeal and even compensation in cases where the detention turns out to be utterly unjustified; regular and close judicial scrutiny; and, what is just as important, periodic review of how this policy is working out.
	The second difficulty I have with the Bill is with this whole idea of glorification. Whenever it is defined within the Bill, it talks in terms of praising terrorism, celebrating terrorism, inducement or incitement to terrorist attacks or encouraging others to emulate. These are only four or five words in terms of which the idea of glorification is defined. It is too wide and too vague.
	Hardly anyone in your Lordships' House has pointed out that we have precisely this legislation in the Indian penal code. While sati was abolished a long time ago, in the mid-1980s there was an act of sati; lots of women in India got terribly worked up and the Government had to give in to pressure—the kind of thing our Government are doing now—and do something. They enacted a law against the glorification of sati. That was about 18 years ago, and not a single prosecution has taken place. In one case, when a prosecution was mounted, no conviction was secured because the case was easily shot down on questions such as what was glorification and whether the utterances by a particular individual amounted to glorification. So if there is any lesson to learn from India, that is it.
	I am not sure what it means to talk about praising, celebrating, or inducing people to engage in terrorist attacks. If I were to argue that, in certain situations, the use of violence, even terrorist violence, was justified, now or in the past, could I be said to have induced anyone to engage in similar acts in the present? What am I to do if my listener or my reading public were to draw that kind of conclusion from what I have written?
	This is not just a hypothetical example. About two years ago, I delivered a lecture at Harvard University on a very technical philosophical question; namely, what are the limits of rational debate and at what point in time may I be able to tell someone, "There is no possibility of arguing with you"? At what point does such a dialogue break down? As an experiment, I imagined a dialogue between Osama bin Laden and Mahatma Gandhi. This article was published a few weeks later in Prospect. I was told that the publishers, who eventually published it in the Harvard University collection, were deeply uneasy just in case it got me into trouble, and even when it appeared in Prospect, I was told that if I were to go to the United States—and I go often, when I am invited to give lectures—I might be detained at the airport.
	I have a feeling that the Bill would catch that kind of article. In order to make my argument philosophically as convincing as possible, I tried to make Osama bin Laden a better philosopher than he is, trying to marshal arguments in his favour which the man would never have dreamt of making. Of course, I made Gandhi just as strong, refuting every point that Osama bin Laden was making. But my conclusion was that in matters of moral absolutes, no compromise, no rational resolution of disagreement, is possible. I am afraid that if I were to write more of this kind of article, I might get into more trouble than I seem to have done.
	I have a similar difficulty with Clause 2, which refers to handling, distributing or circulating terrorist material. I do that all the time. As a university professor whose job it is to teach all kinds of things, including the possibility of justification of terrorist violence, I recommend books by Bakunin, Kropotkin and Nachaev—all kinds of anarchists—who all gloried in terrorism, sometimes mindlessly. Am I to be told that for duplicating these articles or books and circulating them to my students, I will be hauled up before Her Majesty's court and told that I am guilty of "handling"—whatever that may mean in an academic context—material of this kind? We need to be extremely careful.
	When I teach courses on theories of violence and of revolution in history, or whether the concept of innocence makes sense in a political context, because that is important to a definition of terrorism, I might be told that they would not be caught by the Bill because all the Bill intends to stop is incitement to terrorist attacks, and this is not what I am doing. But I do not understand "incitement" in this context. What I do when I teach is to help my students understand that in certain situations, terrorist violence might be condoned and even justified. In other words, the dividing line between inciting and condoning terrorism is pretty thin, and I do not think that the Bill quite captures it. Those are the three specific points I wanted to make. They concern me very deeply, both as someone from within an ethnic minority but, more importantly, as a philosopher whose job it is, as Socrates said, to act as a sting fly, making people think.
	I have a larger point, on which I should like to end. Terrorism is certainly a security question, but it is not only that—it is also a moral and political question. We need to address why people are drawn to it. No one wants to die and, contrary to what some of your Lordships said earlier, even those seeking martyrdom want to reassure themselves that that is consistent with the central principles of their religion. In fact, when the first suicide bombers appeared in Lebanon in the early 1980s, there was intense debate among Muslim theologians about whether that was acceptable in the context of the Koran. Only a few years later, a view was reached in certain circles that it was an okay thing to do. We need to ask why people were persuaded to read their religion in this way and what cultural and political factors precipitated that reading.
	We might also ask ourselves why Britain has not been subjected to an Islamic terrorist threat until recently and why it has come under it only now. For all these reasons, I suggest that while addressing the question of terrorism as robustly as we have done, we need to look at the larger factors. The battle against terrorism cannot be fought within our country alone; it is a world-wide phenomenon and will not disappear in a few days or a year—it will come up again and again. Political wisdom requires that we should be thinking about long-term factors in our country, about our relations with the Muslim world and about the larger sense of grievance that Muslim societies seem to have. If we can apply our minds to creating a sensible kind of world order, that might in the end be a better way of addressing terrorism.

Lord Carlile of Berriew: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will join with me in expressing pleasure that the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, did not follow the tendency of Mr Galloway to hand himself over to the American authorities. Had he done so, we might have been deprived of the fascinating and entertaining speech that we have just heard.
	It may be for the assistance of the House if I make a few remarks from my bird's-eye view as independent reviewer of certain aspects of counter-terrorism legislation. I take it that the House will accept that it is not an abuse of my position as a Member of this House to speak at Second Reading. I have concluded, however, that it would be inappropriate for me to speak in Committee, and I have decided that it would not be appropriate for me to vote in any Divisions.
	In the past few weeks, I have been cited, I think, on every side of every argument in relation to these matters. When the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, spoke of sati, it immediately put me in mind of my childhood reading and my fascination with fakirs, who lay on beds of nails. I have learnt in recent weeks what that felt like—a sort of exquisite discomfort.
	It is perhaps worth re-emphasising a fundamental point founded on—and I use the word in its broadest sense—evidence that I have heard, seen and found from conversations with those operationally involved in counter-terrorism activity and from my own observation. There is a real and present threat of continuing al-Qaeda-connected terrorism within the United Kingdom. One of the problems is that we do not know exactly what al-Qaeda is. It is a loose co-fraternity of mutually sympathetic groups. That is the most that can be said with clear definition. The threat that it poses is unpredictable in its size, range and scope. It applies to all citizens, wherever they may congregate in significant numbers. It applies equally to Members of this House and another place in this building and to children on buses on the way to school in any town or village in the United Kingdom.
	The appearance of suicide bombers in our midst, shocking but not at all surprising given the history of recent years, has raised the stakes. It is right, as a number of noble Lords have said, that the first duty of any government must be to protect the public and keep them safe. However, it is important to recognise that reaction is dangerous, that reaction must be measured, and that reaction must be intellectually defensible at all times. What we do in response to that kind of terrorism must be proportional and must not be exaggerated. As a number of your Lordships have said, we must give paramountcy to continuing solid community relations. To alienate any part of our pretty well integrated community, compared with some other European countries, is to expose ourselves to danger.
	Another paramount matter is to ensure that we enact laws that are needed, not unnecessary, that are enduring, not temporary, and that are fair, not arbitrary. Had there been a scrutiny committee, as was originally envisaged by the Government—I would have favoured a scrutiny committee having chaired another one for a period of months recently—evidence before such a committee would have demonstrated something I have observed. I sometimes think we spend too much time wringing our hands rather than looking at how clean our hands are.
	I say that in this context: evidence before such a committee would have included something I have been doing in recent months. I have been comparing the civil liberties protections offered in all parts of the United Kingdom with those offered in other countries in the Council of Europe and in the United States of America. I have looked in particular at the United States of America, at France and at Spain. I would say, without exaggerating, that we have a very reasonable quality of civil liberties protection in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, has spoken accurately about some of the things that occur in the French jurisdiction, which we would not tolerate here; for example, up to four days of interviewing by the police, with no tape recording and with no lawyer present. That was described to me by a senior person in France in the past three weeks, unsurprisingly, as a "very productive period of questioning".
	Those of us who remember the pre-PACE days are not at all surprised by that. I am therefore far from satisfied that other countries' systems—which we sometimes praise from a position of relative ignorance—protect their civil liberties any more than ours. I suspect they protect them less. I am far from satisfied that some of the European systems do more than merely shoehorn them into basic European Convention on Human Rights compatibility, but actually involve far longer periods of detention than ever occur anywhere in the United Kingdom, or were ever envisaged remotely by this Bill in its original form. That, I believe, is a realistic assessment of the comparative evidence.
	I remain satisfied, as I said in my report published on 12 October, that in a very small number of the most important cases a longer period of arrest prior to charging would ensure proper investigation, charging with the right offences—not some kind of holding offence to justify keeping people in custody—or not charging at all. I believe that if we followed those principles, we would ensure a logical outcome. The reasons I set out in paragraphs 56 to 61 of my report, published on 12 October. If any noble Lords want to read them they can get it from the Printed Paper Office. However, it is extremely important to retain a fair system of law and protection of personal liberty consistent with paragraphs 224 to 227 of the report of the Newton committee, raised earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I have advocated an elaborate and fairly complex system of introduction of an investigative judge. I regret that the Government have felt that this is not, for present purposes, the time to go down that road, though my understanding is that the Government are reasonably well disposed to looking at such a system. If such a system were introduced, along the lines of the template suggested by the Newton committee and in my recent report, then we would be considering the important issue—how we get the balance—and not merely conducting a Dutch auction on the number of days, which, in my view, has not distinguished the political process.
	Twenty-eight days offers an improvement, although a modest one, in terms of public safety. I am doubtful about the additional protections for individual freedoms offered by the Bill as amended. I am not sure it is a sensible use of High Court judges. I shall, of course, review what emerges from this Bill. I hope that time will confirm the democratic wisdom of another place. There will be an opportunity to debate other details of the Bill.
	I just want to raise two concerns, concerns which have already been raised by other speakers in this debate. I have sat in Professor Paul Wilkinson's interesting attic office in the University of St Andrew's Centre for the Study of Terrorism. I do not want to shop Professor Wilkinson and have him arrested by the local constabulary, but my reading of the provisions at the moment are that he might well be committing a criminal offence under this Bill by being the greatest non-lawyer expert in this country—and that is praise, rather than criticism—on terrorist organisations around the world. My noble friend Lady Williams made a powerful case on behalf of the British Library, but I believe there is an equally powerful case to be made on behalf of academics—not just the great ones but the good ones too—and also on behalf of people such as Members of another place, who take a real interest in these matters and have research for them.
	I want to raise specifically what I call the John Simpson point. I have seen people such as John Simpson—is he now the diplomatic editor of the BBC?—go to terrorist training camps and report, in my view in the public interest, on what these camps do , why they exist, and draw the matter to public attention. Under Clause 8, he would be committing an offence. I cannot believe that that is the real intention of the Government. I hope that the Government will find a way to introduce an amendment to protect bona fide journalists.
	I have accepted the request that I look at the definition of terrorism. I have been given nearly a year to look at eight lines of text, which sounds more formidable a task than looking at it in a month. However, given that time, I hope, in a period of rather less than a year, to produce something useful. I intend to invite the widest submission of papers and advice. I propose to invite the public to express their views and to contribute, as well as the many known for their specialist interest in this area. I am sure that the whole House would wish this to be an open process, possibly even including public meetings.
	Overall I would urge this House and another place to take a carefully balanced view of the Bill in the context of the real threat. Perhaps the most telling contribution I can make is to ask Members of both Houses to remember that this is not an abstract issue.

Lord Stratford: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has an eminent, albeit difficult, position. But it is not as uncomfortable as that of another prominent Liberal, who was said to be sitting on the fence waiting for the iron to enter his soul.
	This is a Bill everyone wishes was unnecessary. Unfortunately, it is a response to the growing dangers we face in our everyday lives. Whether it is an appropriate response, I want to touch on in a moment. We are very fond of saying we live in a free and democratic society, and in comparison with many countries around the world, that is true and would remain so even if this Bill was many times tougher than it is. However, there is no such thing as absolute freedom, or unrestricted civil and human rights. Indeed, the words "absolute" and "unrestricted" are incompatible with any acceptable notions of freedom and civil and human rights. Freedom and democracy do not mean licence, but neither are they outraged by reasonable levels of control and discipline in society. Put simply, the most important civil right in our society is the right to go about our lawful business, free of fear, intimidation and violence. Unfortunately, we are finding it increasingly difficult to do so, and thus it is inevitable that governments and the apparatus of the state will respond accordingly: CCTV cameras, more police—many of them armed—ID cards and legislation such as we are considering today, are all part and parcel of that response.
	I do not find any of that a great problem, even though I regret the necessity. In my time in another place I called for the routine arming of the police, the deployment of the military to assist the civil authorities, a mandatory national DNA register and a compulsory system of community service for all 16 to 17 year-olds. There was a time when I would have found such an agenda anathema but circumstances have changed and so has my response. Ultimately, collective freedom will always be more important than individual freedom, yet too often we have given far too much emphasis to the latter and not enough to the former. My own somewhat depressing belief is that violence in society will continue to increase and the state will therefore be required to adopt more and more robust measures to deal with it. Perhaps we will eventually have to face up to the uncomfortable fact that the days of liberal individualism are probably numbered.
	I turn from the Bill's context to its content, parts of which still concern me. The first is the problem of providing an adequate definition of terrorism itself. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is being asked to review the definition. I do not envy him his task and, by the sound of what he has just said, neither does he. We all know that, throughout history, one man's terrorist has often been another man's freedom fighter. In the days of empire, we initially referred to independent leaders such as Nkrumah, Nyerere, Kaunda and Makarios as terrorists, only to end up negotiating with them and welcoming them here on state visits.
	The other major definitional problem in the Bill is that of the so-called "glorification of terrorism". If such an offence had been on the statute book, where would those of us be who supported and advocated on behalf of the ANC when Nelson Mandela was on Robben Island, condemned as a terrorist by the apartheid regime in South Africa? I well remember the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, describing the ANC as a "terrorist organisation". That upset quite a number of us and we decided to enter the House of Commons Chamber wearing ANC T-shirts. We might have offended the dress code but it did not offend the law at the time. But we all remember the noble Baroness subsequently being one of those welcoming President Mandela when he addressed both Houses in Westminster Hall. There are times—and we know it—when armed struggle is legitimate, particularly when the struggle is against tyrannical regimes and there is no democratic alternative.
	I admit that I would have supported 90 days' pre-charge detention, with reluctance, had I still been a Member of the other House, but I would have done so because I am certainly not prepared to take risks with other people's safety. At least someone held for 90 days remains alive, which is more than we can say for all those who have died as victims of terrorism. However, the decision of the other place to agree to 28 days seems in line with the views of most senior police officers with whom I have discussed the matter in recent days. Nevertheless, it would be very interesting to test the feeling in your Lordships' House if an amendment to restore 90 days were tabled.
	Like others, I deeply regret the necessity for this Bill. I support it but look forward to it being further tightened in Committee. My other deep regret is that I feel absolutely certain that there will be many more Bills like this to follow.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate, not least the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Stratford. I must confess that the noble Lord chilled me somewhat when he said that collective freedom was more important than individual freedom.
	Naturally, we are very shocked by the appearance of suicide bombers in our country, just as the United States was very shocked by the events of 9/11 in 2001, but we are not the first to arrive there. I think that we can profitably learn from the state of Israel, which has lived with suicide bombing for many more years than that. We can learn from the wisdom of its rightly celebrated Chief Justice, Aharon Barak, who, I think, is giving a lecture in this country this month. In his famous judgment in the case known widely, although not correctly, as the "ticking time bomb case", because that was an example of what you could do if there was a ticking time bomb, condemning heavy-handedness by the Israeli security services, he said:
	"Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome its difficulties".
	I fully understand the Government bringing forward this Bill following the events of 7 July—the day of my maiden speech in this House, for which I was late because of the disruption of the trains, although that was the minimal thing in that absolutely tragic day—but a balance must be struck between adequate powers for the police and security services and the liberty of the subject. Chief Justice Barak's words on that are highly relevant. We should not underestimate the effects on liberty of 90 days' detention, particularly if it will be at all frequent. If you overdo it, you will deeply disillusion those portions of society likely to be affected by it. We know that there is a very serious risk that Muslims in our society are likely to be particularly targeted in this area. It must be said that the vast majority of Muslims in this country are horrified by the perversion of the Koran and of Islam that underlies those horrible criminal acts. They are our best source of intelligence, and I feel confident that our intelligence services will be fully aware of that.
	It is also important that decisions on those matters of individual liberty must not be seen to be left to either the security services or the police. That is unfair and dangerous because it is very hard for them to know what to ask for, and, when you give it to them, it is very hard for them not to lock people up. Let us remember what happened under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001: 23 people were locked up, under such supervision as it was possible for the courts to give them through the Special Immigration Appeals Tribunal system, for up to three and a half years. Yet when the Law Lords declared that to be contrary to law, in the case of A in December 2004, about half of them were let out and some placed under control orders but to the best of my knowledge—I will be corrected if I am wrong—not one of them has been prosecuted, notwithstanding that they were held in custody for far longer than is proposed in the 90 days provision.
	On the debate between the 28 days and 90 days proposals, which will not be central in your Lordships' House unless it is pushed forward on an amendment, although I deeply respect what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and those with experience of the security services say, I am far from convinced that the case is made out for one particular length rather than the other. I am far from convinced that we should necessarily see any prosecutions even if that longer period were given. It will be very interesting to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, at least something on the drift of why he thinks prosecutions would have been brought.
	This is only one of six Bills on terrorism since 2000. My second question is: would not money be better spent on building up the security services and the police's specialised membership in this area of anti-terrorism rather than on the Identity Cards Bill, on which enormous sums are likely to be spent? That remains a very serious question. I am glad that we shall deal in Committee with both Bills in parallel.
	The next thing for this House to do is to fulfil its primary role as a revising Chamber. I very much support the points made about the opacity of Clause 1, which deals with encouragement and glorification. It is quite right that intention should be included, but I support all that has been said. I would build on the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, as to the potential injustice that could arise from a definition of recklessness not requiring personal culpability. I also think we must put right the present state of the clause on attendance at a place of terrorist training. Powerful points have been made on that, as they have on the question of libraries and universities by my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour, and the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, both of whom know very well what they are talking about.
	Our duty is to scrutinise the Bill extremely closely and to make sure that it is, in so far as it can be, effective—and like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, I welcome Clause 5—but also fair. It is the abiding principle of all criminal justice, whether it deals with terrorism or general crime, that it is very often right and necessary to be tough, but we must also always be sure that we are fair.

Lord Plant of Highfield: My Lords, I am pleased that the Government have produced a legislative framework for dealing with the terrorist threat in this Bill. There is a very large part of the Bill with which I am entirely happy and in sympathy. I want to concentrate on one element of the Bill, which has just been mentioned: the issue of intention and recklessness. I want to use that as a way of teasing out some issues about the compatibility of that clause with the Human Rights Act, which has not been mentioned so far.
	I was grateful for the advice of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that to be called liberal was a term of abuse in the new Labour lexicon. I have been a member of the Labour Party for about 45 years and I have always regarded myself very definitely as a lower-case liberal. As such, I think the Human Rights Act, in incorporating many of the convention rights, does embody a form of liberalism in that broadest sense. It is important for me, and for the Government, who are supposed to legislate in accordance with the requirements of the Human Rights Act—there is a declaration on the face of the Bill that the Bill is compatible with convention rights—this should be looked at in some detail, as of course it will be by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The other constraint on the Government's legislative intention is, as the noble Minister made clear, the Council of Europe's convention on terrorism, which the Government signed and wish to ratify. The Bill, if it is to become an Act in its present form, will have to be compatible both with the Human Rights Act and the European Council convention.
	I want to concentrate on the issue of intention and recklessness. I begin by going back the Home Secretary's Statement to the House of Commons on 20 July. He said:
	"The proposal targets those who, although not directly inciting, glorify and condone terrorist acts, knowing full well that the effect on their listeners will be to encourage them to turn to terrorism. So, indirect incitement, when it is done with the intention of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism—that is an important qualification—will become a criminal offence".—[Official Report, Commons, 20/7/05; col. 1254.]
	In that Statement to the House of Commons, there were two elements in the Home Secretary's mind: explicit intention and knowing full well what the effect of what you were saying was supposed to be. That "knowing full well" clearly refers to a state of mind on the part of the person making the speech, or doing whatever he was doing.
	Of course, this is rather different from what has ended up in the Bill, as a number of speakers have said. In the Bill we have, rather, what has come to be called an objective test of recklessness; not "what is in my mind" but rather "how it would be reasonable for me to expect other people to respond to my words". It is no longer a subjective test; it is a test of what it would be reasonable to presume. So, under the Bill, an offence may be committed either by an intentional action or by objective recklessness. That is very different from what the Home Secretary said on 20 July. My worry is why there has been this shift of ground. It may seem a terribly arcane point, but it is a pretty fundamental shift. The answer given by the Home Secretary is that very few convictions would have ensued from a purely intentional test, as intention would be very difficult to prove, particularly in the case of a denial of intention.
	Given the importance of intention in so much of law, quite a lot of law would go up in smoke if this, in general, was taken to be true. Juries reach verdicts every day as to whether, on the evidence taken as a whole, an accused person did or did not intend to commit the offence with which he or she is charged. The issue of the accused person's denial is only one element of that. It seems to me that juries are well equipped to determine whether someone intended to do something. The argument that the question of intention means we will not get enough convictions seems to me to be rather weak.
	Whether we will get enough convictions if we define an offence one way rather than another seems to me rather the wrong way of looking at an offence. Surely, the important thing is to define the offence as clearly and precisely as we can, and then to prosecute under that clear and precise definition, not to see how far we can broaden the scope or basis of this offence in order to maximise the number of prosecutions. That seems to me to be a very peculiar approach to the whole thing. What worries me is that this may well be incompatible with the Human Rights Act in a very specific way. All these things will be subject to the convention's principles of abridgements of freedoms, prescribed by law. I am not at all sure that this objective recklessness test will meet the principle of being prescribed by law because, essentially, whether I have committed an offence under that part of the clause will depend on other people's reactions to what I have done. I will not know if I have committed an offence until I see how they react; is this compatible with the idea of the rule of law lying behind the notion of something being prescribed by law? I think that is the fundamental issue here.
	Indeed, the objective recklessness test requires me, in a sense, to predict the behaviour of people who may well be inherently unreasonable: that is why they are about to go out and bomb people. I think the objective recklessness test may well fall foul of the compatibility requirement that is on the face of the Bill. The same would be true of the convention, which, in two paragraphs of its articles, refers only to intention. It does not say anything about recklessness. If the Government wish to ratify the Council of Europe convention on terrorism, which they say they do—and it is all in the Explanatory Notes—they must explain how they can do that, given that the Bill we now have is rather different from what the Home Secretary suggested on 20 July. The basis of the offence has undergone a very big change. Even though it might look an arcane point, it is an exceptionally large change.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine: My Lords, to follow one philosopher of distinction in a debate is lucky, but to follow two of the calibre of the noble Lords, Lord Parekh and Lord Plant of Highfield, is indeed a privilege.
	The question that law makers must ask themselves is quite simple: will this legislation help to prevent terrorism and to prosecute terrorists? Let me say at the outset that I hope it will enhance the ability of the security services to prevent terrorism, in so far as it is possible to do so through legal measures. I remain convinced that much prevention of crime comes through human intelligence, and much of that from the very people who might be affected by the sweeping powers in this Bill. The second part of the question is whether it will make it easier to identify and apprehend would-be terrorists. Here I have many doubts as the net is cast so wide in order to render the apprehension of so many that identifying the terrorist must become more rather than less difficult.
	Perhaps it would also be useful to spell out the underlying assumption of my question, which is that of proportionality. Will the legislation give the security services additional tools, but only at so great a cost to freedom and liberty that we need to proceed carefully? Does it go so far as to become counter-productive?
	I speak, some would say predictably, from the perspective of one who is from the community most affected by these measures—the Muslim community. But lest one gets accused of special pleading, let me say that my views on this Bill are shaped by a concern for the civil liberties of all. While it might be Muslims who are under suspicion today, it can be another group tomorrow, as Irish Catholics will testify.
	Many noble Lords have had briefings from civil liberties groups on the impact of the Bill. I wonder whether they have seen the briefing from Islamic Forum Europe. This body has produced a leaflet which is directed at Muslims. It is entitled Terrorism Bill 2005 Impact on British Muslims. It details in plain English what the implications might be for Muslims and refers to Clauses 1 and 2, entitled the "Encouragement of terrorism" and the "Dissemination of terrorist publications". The leaflet states:
	"Under these clauses you could be prosecuted for: Careless talks/speeches if they are 'interpreted' as encouragement to attempt a terrorist attack . . . If retrospective search by police find that you have attended meetings/gatherings with suspects . . . Acts of generosity such as allowing someone, who later proves to be a suspect, to stay at a house or even giving them a lift in a car for their journeys . . . Speaking up for the right of the oppressed in Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, Kashmir and elsewhere to use arms in self-defence".
	On the extension of the grounds for proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000, covered by Part 2 of the Bill, it states:
	"Non-violent Muslim organisations could be banned simply for their beliefs or views".
	It points out:
	"You can be prosecuted for wearing a range of Islamic symbols or logos that newly proscribed groups also use e.g. the black flag with the Shahada inscribed".
	I shall explain for those noble Lords not familiar with the expression that shahada refers to the testimony of being a Muslim. It is the first verse of the Qu'ran and is to be found on a range of Islamic texts and symbols, including national flags.
	My point in mentioning this leaflet is to illustrate the effect that this Bill is already having on community relations. I am sure that the Minister will say that these interpretations of the Bill are incorrect. The point is that we cannot know if they are because the scope is so wide as to defy accuracy—legal certainty, as has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. The Bill's tests in terms of indirect encouragement, relying as they do on persons,
	"reasonably to be expected to infer",
	or "recklessness", are deeply subjective. Moreover, referring to "members of the public", as they do, begs the question: which members of which public in which country? What might be acceptable behaviour to an Israeli may not be acceptable behaviour to a Palestinian.
	We politicians above all others must recognise that political and religious differences are deeply and sincerely held. Hence, criminalising speech through an offence of glorification or recklessness is not the solution; rather, it may exacerbate the very problem of extremism by giving the impression that the state does not tolerate dissent.
	A further issue with Clause 1 is the definition of terrorism itself. In Pakistan in the early 1980s, I witnessed the calls by the US and UK governments to Afghan and Pakistani Mujaheddin to rise up against Soviet forces in Russia. In the words of Ronald Reagan, they were "proud freedom fighters". I say to the Government that it would be morally suspect for them now to seek to criminalise activities that cannot properly be regarded as terrorism. There are still parts of the world where underground struggles for freedom are the only basis for fighting subjugation and oppression. One has only to look at the recent history of Europe to see that, in certain circumstances, there are no other choices.
	My final point concerns Clause 21—the grounds for the proscription of terrorist organisations. Those of us who work around issues to do with extremism know people in groups whose views we find deeply distasteful. Yet we accept the first rule of conflict resolution—that, in order to transform the situation from one of conflict to one of peace, we have to listen. When you say to people that their political ideology cannot be discussed, you are saying in effect that you are practising the state censorship of political views. This will not sit with the minimum standards of freedom of expression. It will be seen as disproportionate and will drive groups underground. A consequence of that will be that the very intelligence needed to apprehend those who support terrorism will become harder to detect.
	In her opening remarks the Minister said that Clauses 1 and 2 came from an approach whereby a climate should not be allowed to take hold in which,
	"impressionable people believe that terrorism is acceptable".
	Indeed, there has been a tone in the wider public debate which somehow implies that all Muslims are terrorists, or that all terrorists are Muslim. I would argue that terrorists are terrorists, and to imply that there is somehow a malaise in a certain community from which this hydra has been born is simply wrong. It is wrong today and it will be wrong tomorrow.
	I started with a question about whether this Bill would be helpful in deterring terrorism. If it goes through in the form that it has come to us, it will be of diminished value in so doing. Moreover, it will have so fundamentally altered the balance between liberty and democracy on the one hand and the duty of the state to protect its citizens on the other that it will undermine good relations between the communities for a long time to come. That is a legacy which would be most unwelcome.

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: My Lords, Benjamin Franklin reminded us that those who surrender liberty for security deserve neither. We should be mindful of those words as we debate this Bill. In the face of terrorism, it is very easy to be overwhelmed by revulsion and a desire to act. It is easy to see new law as a way of sending tough signals to our enemies. It is easy to see legislating as a way of providing the security and paternalism that people seem to want in such insecure times. Great though the pressures may be, governments should try to stand above the pressure to act and above the fray. They should take careful stock of the ways in which any benefits brought by new law might be outweighed by the damage done to our democratic rights and freedoms.
	We all agree that getting the protections right can be hard. Along with other noble Lords, I have no difficulty with the idea of introducing an offence of "acts preparatory to terrorism". In our new world, occasionally individuals may participate on an ad hoc basis in an act of terrorism or prepare for an act of terrorism while having no links with anyone else, thus making a conspiracy charge impossible. So I understand the benefit of introducing such a charge. In the current circumstances, I also understand that we want to have in place legislation to deal with the training of people for terrorism in, for example, Pakistan.
	However, in drafting such legislation, it is important that we are careful not to draw into the loop those who may not have the appropriate intention. Getting the balance right is hard. Into the balance must be put the fact that certain laws might alienate sections of our communities which we very much hope might be a source of intelligence, vital in combating terrorism. But that intelligence will close down if people feel that laws are being directed specifically at them. This is not because the Muslim community sympathises with terrorism but because there is a growing sense that special laws are being introduced just for them, that their people are being targeted and that they are in the firing line—a point frequently repeated to me at public meetings. It generates silence. We saw that with the Irish situation—an anxiety about expressing a view or going to the police with suspicions, a fear that they are all being lumped together and that, if they are not careful, they or their sons will be falsely accused.
	Terrorism always grows out of perceptions of injustice. Young Muslims in Britain look around the world and see people who share their faith suffering and being humiliated. Their sense of outrage against injustice is strong. That is an emotion common to the young, and some of us never outgrow it—the emotion of empathy and compassion when we see people being ill-treated or suffering. That emotion will be greatly inflamed if we are not careful about how we respond to the current threat that we all face. That is one of the reasons that we must exercise great caution in risking the imprisonment of people for lengthy periods without charge on mere suspicion. It is to be resisted with great care. We should also be careful about closing down the free debate that must take place about political situations around the world, whether in the Middle East, Chechnya, Afghanistan or Iran.
	A number of misperceptions have blighted the whole debate on the Bill. Last night I was talking to a Member of Parliament about the government attempt to introduce detention without charge for 90 days. The MP said to me that it was ridiculous that the police, in such difficult and serious cases, should have to cut off their investigations after just 14 days. I had to point out that that was not true. He was amazed when I explained that there was no such cut-off. After charging, police actually carry on with their investigations. They carry on interrogating witnesses who might be able to help their case in court; they carry on trying to make connections between individuals in custody and others around the world; and they carry on with their investigations into the forensics in the case—whether it is computers or links with explosives. What they cannot do after charging is to continue interrogating. That is the difference.
	There is nothing to stop the disembowelling of computers or the questioning of people abroad about an arrested person long after the charge is made. However, the reason that questioning does not continue after a very limited period—the reason that we have made that the rule—is that until now we have considered the great risks attached to continuing with interrogation over days and weeks and into months. People are more likely to confess to things that they did not do. We know how oppressive that can be. We also know the cost to people of being taken in, being kept in custody and not being charged. If that occurs over a long period of time, even if ultimately they are returned to their homes, there may be cost in terms of their employment and their relations with their families and how they are perceived by the rest of their community or by society at large. The damage to them personally is never retrieved.
	Our current 14-day detention period is way in excess of that of any other Commonwealth country and even that of most European countries. I have laid out the reasons. Interrogations over those long periods are resisted by civilised democracies. Even in most European countries there would not be detention for as long as a month before charging. One of the risks was set out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. Too often we look at a country with a totally different system, such as France, and cherry pick what people do elsewhere without understanding that the checks and balances are different within a common-law system.
	What is the answer to the problem posed by the police—that the world of international terrorism is more complex? I am currently involved with a terrorist-linked trial at the Old Bailey. The officers on the case told me that in the high-tech unit of the anti-terrorist squad they have only eight officers with the skill to unpack the contents of a computer. That is double what was available to them only a few months ago. Resourcing is an issue.
	Secondly, why do we not look at the possibility of creating an exception to the rule of no requestioning after charge? If something of real significance comes to light—a witness abroad who says, "I know that this man was in a training camp in Pakistan"—why cannot we have an exception to the rule of no further questioning on an application to a High Court judge and with the sanction of the Attorney-General? We would not then have to abase our principles and demur from things that have been part of our rule of law.
	I, too, am concerned about the charge of encouraging terrorism because I think that we should have clear intent in the Bill. I am also concerned about proscribing non-violent organisations, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir. Doing so will drive it underground and alienate whole sections of our Muslim community. They are intelligent people, who do not espouse violence but do want a debate about the principles of Sharia law and so on.
	Finally, the debate is important and will continue over the weeks in Committee. It is important that we remember that justice is the supreme ethical value and that there can be no peace without it. If we want to end terrorism, we have to do so with justice.
	When my noble friends on the Back Benches and one of our new Labour colleagues say that we may be looking at a time when collective rights come to the fore and individual rights will wither on the vine, I can only say that if that is true and if that is the future we are looking at, I feel deeply sad. I am a democratic socialist but I am a liberal, and I am proud of bearing all those labels. I can say with a true sense of alarm that if it is felt on our own Benches that individual rights do not matter, let us remember Stalin.

Lord Desai: My Lords, being the 27th speaker, almost everything that I want to say has been said. Briefly, when we were debating the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, I put forward a criterion that has been kindly quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, as to how we will have to strike a balance. This is my rule and may not be anyone else's. Simply, on the one hand we want to prevent the probability of an innocent person being incarcerated, but on the other hand we want to diminish the probability that a terrorist might escape and kill a lot of people. We have to balance those two probabilities.
	In an absolute sense, some people would say that they do not want a single innocent person to be incarcerated and that that is our tradition. I respect that. I cast my balance slightly differently. I am not saying that I am right or you are wrong. Nothing is right or wrong; we all strike our balance differently. The balance that I strike has, I admit, been disturbed, or enhanced, by what happened on 7 July. Perhaps I should not let such events influence me, but I do.
	What I like about the Bill is the provision on acts preparatory to terrorism. Again, when debating the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, we decided that as soon as possible in the new Parliament we would have a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament to discuss and to consult, and that the Government would bring forward a Bill, which we would then discuss. That of course did not happen because of what took place on 7 July. We now have a much more hurried process due to those circumstances. But, within that context, we have to scrutinise the clause on acts preparatory to terrorism very carefully because it is crucial to what we want to do.
	I do not think the clause on glorification of terrorism is very good. On the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill I argued that speech acts should not be punished unless there is strict intentionality. The same applies here. It is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, that Professor Wilkinson or John Simpson will be incarcerated—the good people will not be incarcerated—but I worry about the bad people, the ordinary people, the graduate student, the amateur who happens to look at computer records on the websites of different Islamic organisations. Common sense tells me that we have a fair system—we know that the Director of Public Prosecutions will not round up everyone and prosecute them—but, as an academic, I worry about what might happen to an enthusiastic student, especially a bad one who does not know how to carry out research and who would probably get into trouble.
	We have not made the one very simple distinction that the problem is not Islam or religion but ideology. We have to understand the distinction between Islam and what is called Islamism. There are various phases of Islamism—some are quite local and others are national—but we face global Islamism. The global Islamism that al-Qaeda represents has a story which, although it uses religious symbols, is a political story. We have to understand the political story that global Islamism is telling us.
	It starts with the decline of the Ottoman empire and the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924. I shall not go into all the details but there is a genuine belief among many Muslims that they have been in decline ever since then. They believe that the only way to restore the glory of the Muslim community is to attack the main enemy—the West—by guerrilla means and to inflict as much damage as possible because that will begin to revive the glory of the Muslim community.
	The majority of Muslims are not concerned with this hard line ideology. Likewise, in the days of our own glorious past there was a philosophy called Marxism and there was a state terrorism called Stalinism. They both used the language of Marxism but they were very different things. Similarly with Islam: global Islamism is a much more sinister and violent ideology than that of the people who argue that, for example, Sharia should be adopted by Muslim states, or that perhaps states such as Pakistan and Egypt have deviated from the true path that a Muslim state should follow. They are different issues.
	The more we understand the enemy, the better we will be able to deal with that enemy. If we do not understand the enemy and cast our net too wide, we will punish innocent people.

Lord Brennan: My Lords, it has rightly been said in the debate that a primary duty of the state is to protect its citizens against death and injury from terrorism. That duty is no less when it comes to protecting those citizens who have been killed or injured by terrorism. The Bill seeks to implement in part the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism. The preamble of that convention requires that all member states, including ours, express their profound solidarity with the victims of terrorism and their families. In Clause 17 of the Bill the Government seek to extend—in my view rightly—the prosecution of terrorist offences outside the UK and across the globe because terrorism is now a world threat. I ask the question: what do we do in this country to protect those who have been injured or killed here or abroad by terrorism? What do those of us who have spoken today, with such vigour, for liberty and security do for these people?
	In none of the terrorism Bills that has come into being since 2001 is there a word about what is to be done for the victims of terrorism. Although, ironically enough, we have sought to protect the human rights of accused people in respect of forfeiture and the like, and although we give compensation to those who have suffered damage to their property because of the actions of the police during the proper investigation of terrorist offences, for the victims there is nothing.
	On 7 July, 52 people were killed inside the United Kingdom; 11 died at Sharm el-Sheikh a couple of weeks later, 33 in Bali—they were from this country—and in Turkey and in the Middle East. Many more were injured beyond the 160 odd who lost their lives. Families were disrupted and lives ruined. In other countries, those whose lives are affected—either the victims who died, the survivors or the injured—get support. In the United States the scheme embraces all within that country who are killed or injured by terrorism, and all American citizens wherever they are injured. It is the same in France, in Israel and in other countries.
	What about the United Kingdom? We treat the victims of terrorism—those we want to protect so specially—as victims of crime. In a code of practice for the victims of crime published in October, which I have just looked at, terrorist offences and terrorist victims get no special mention—and yet we say they deserve the maximum protection. A young woman of 32 had to have a double amputation of her legs after 7 July. She has no income. Who is going to pay the rent or the mortgage? Who is going to sort out adequate prostheses for two legs? Who is going to pay for the medical treatment? What are we to do?
	It is said that as the terrorist offences happened in England the victims can apply to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority—not in person but on paper—but not for all they have lost, only for a capped maximum. This does not apply in the other countries I have described. They have to wait until the authority has got, if you do not mind, the police reports—an authority that is under-funded, under-staffed and which under-compensates. If they have the misfortune to be killed at Sharm el-Sheikh or in Bali, they get nothing; nothing from the Government here, or from the governments in some of those countries, such as Egypt. They get no insurance, because when they next travel abroad and look at their policy, they see that their £20 premium has an exclusion for terrorism. The people from Sharm el-Sheikh who applied got nothing. They are adrift—those we want to protect. In this debate, can we not garner the enthusiasm in favour of liberty and of security, and remember those who have actually suffered?
	On 19 October in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister rightly said the Government would consider a scheme to compensate the victims of terrorism here and abroad. I personally regard these victims as people suffering in a different order of magnitude from ordinary crime. They are the front-line casualties—if we are to call this a war—and they deserve the maximum consideration and all that is necessary to help them recover their lives.
	We should have a "victims of terrorism support" organisation. It should be properly funded, efficient and rapid, and could be financed by insurance. The French do this with a levy of €3—£2—per policy. When you think that 65 million foreign visits are made by the people of this country each year, and think in your mind's eye of the travel premium for each one, a couple of euros is a modest expense to protect the victims of terrorism.
	We have been here before. In the Blitz and the Second World War, Churchill told the nation that it was:
	"unfair for British society to place the entire burden of the destruction on those unlucky enough to be hit".
	That goes for those unlucky enough to be killed or injured, wherever it might occur. So hereafter in our debate, either by amendment or the announcement of a new scheme by the Government, let us be seen to do something for the victims of terrorism as well as debate liberty and security.

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, as a former senior police officer, you will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to detain your Lordships for too long this evening. This has been an interesting and inspiring debate. The threat posed by international terrorism has been well addressed. It is totally different from anything this country has faced before. The law enforcement agencies clearly have a monumental task to deal with fanatics whose sole aim is to destroy as many innocent people as possible. It is imperative, therefore, that we give those agencies as much support as we can. This is better done across party divides, and I hope there will be a consensus on the general principles we are discussing this evening.
	I would like to deal particularly with the question of pre-charge detention, and why it is so essential under the changed circumstances. We all value human rights and civil liberties, and rightly so. In dangerous circumstances such as we now face, however, a balance has to be struck, as has been said. That is what this debate has been about.
	The police handling of suspects used to be governed by what were called the "judges' rules", prior to the enactment of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in 1984. The judges set out the circumstances under which suspects could be detained and when they could be charged. Police could arrest if they had reasonable grounds to suspect people of committing what were then called "felonies". There was no limit on that detention, which in many cases I recall was for days at a time. However, the police were directed by the judges that they had to charge when they had sufficient evidence. This, as was mentioned earlier, has the effect of preventing any further questioning regarding that particular charge.
	It has been suggested that an answer might be to charge for lesser offences. The police used to do that; they held people on what was called a holding charge. The difficulty of that if you are dealing with terrorist offences is that, if you are holding people on a very minor charge, there is a risk that they would be granted bail, which causes problems. That all changed with the PACE Act, which placed limits, subject to extensions by a superintendent and then by a court. This is well regulated now, with codes of practice related to tape recording and so on.
	Terrorism is of a different order, particularly suicide terrorism. The first duty of the police is the prevention of crime and the protection of life. It follows, therefore, that if they receive intelligence about a group of active bomb-plotters, the necessity to arrest early is obvious, as noble Lords have mentioned previously. The task then starts of collecting evidence while the conspirators are being held. This can include making premises safe and decoding numerous hard drives, checking CCTV footage and so on.
	My noble friend Lady Kennedy rightly said that this does not stop simply because you have charged the suspect, but when you are searching houses, seizing property and coming across tape and phone recordings, it is valueless unless you can put some of the points you have found back to the people you have in custody. That has to be understood, and I am sure it is, certainly by the legal minds in here. It is no good simply seizing property without talking to people about what you have found and who it belongs to. It is important that that point is made. Interpreters have to be marshalled and suspects interviewed—with proper rest periods, quite rightly, and legal representation.
	The police and security services have looked carefully at this, and their assessment was that a proper judicially supervised period was 90 days. There has been quite a lot of criticism of this by opponents who claim that this was only an opening offer by the police, who expected it to be whittled down. I think that is unfair to the police, who gave an honest evaluation of the time required to do the job.
	I said at the beginning that we need a balance between the protection of life and the safeguarding of our civil liberties. Your Lordships may not accept the impartiality of the police in this, but they have access to information that cannot be made public. Someone who might be more acceptable as an impartial commentator is the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, Britain's independent reviewer of counter-terrorism laws, who has addressed your Lordships' House this evening. He is a highly respected Member of the House, sitting as he does on the Liberal Democrat Benches. I am sure you will agree that he is beyond reproach, despite the cryptic comment made at the beginning by the noble Lord, Lord McNally.
	The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said last week that his independent assessment of the time needed for the police to conduct investigations was, lo and behold, 90 days. I quote:
	"I know of at least two or three cases where terror suspects were not charged appropriately because the police ran out of time to question them. If the new Bill does not redress that situation, it will not deal with the problem".
	Lest your Lordships suspect collusion, he added:
	"The police never put to me 90 days. I looked at such evidence as was available and made my own assessment".
	Those comments speak for themselves.
	The other matter I would like to deal with briefly is the allegation that the police have conspired to get mired in politics. Policing is a very political business. Northern Ireland displays that fully. It would be remarkable if the police did not make representations to parliamentarians openly and publicly on issues on which they have expert knowledge, and a wish to protect the lives of the citizens of this country.
	When I was the president of the Police Superintendents' Association, I campaigned rigorously to change the law on paedophiles, the right to silence, double jeopardy and many other issues. What I did not do, and what I would have been wrong to have done, was to get involved in party politics. There lies the difference. That is prohibited by police regulations. But to lobby on general issues with people of all parties is perfectly reasonable. On terrorism, the police campaigned openly with parliamentarians of all parties and of none, in both Houses of Parliament. In my opinion, that was their duty. If anyone could have been construed as dragging the police into party politics, it was the Opposition in accusing them of being lackeys of the Government. That was manifestly untrue and amounted to a disgraceful slur on their integrity. I conclude with a simple plea: give the police the tools and they will do the job. I commend the Bill to the House.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I follow my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby in her passionate yet chilling speech, which so eloquently demonstrated the threat to freedom of intellectual discussion and research in this country that is posed by some of the provisions of this Bill. It was notable that my noble friend Lord Carlile also, speaking in his independent capacity, expressed his strong opinion that the Bill has the potential to criminalise academic and parliamentary research, and indeed serious journalism.
	The provisions of the Bill have been carefully considered by many in the library community. Among them is the British Library, a great range of library associations, associations of librarians, the Association of University Teachers and Universities UK. All these respected members of the library and academic community fear the impact of this Bill on teaching and research and the ability of libraries to support those activities.
	There is a grave danger that institutions, academics, researchers and lecturers will unwittingly fall foul of the Bill as currently drafted. The key provisions are those in Clause 2 which prohibit the loan or making-available-for-loan of a terrorist publication as defined. This clause is clearly intended to apply to libraries. Its impact depends on the meaning of "terrorist publication" and how it is to be determined whether a particular publication falls within the definition. However, the definitions in Clause 2(2) are wide and uncertain. Clause 2(2)(a) defines as a terrorist publication one which provides,
	"direct or indirect encouragement or any other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism";
	or, under subsection (2)(b), one which contains,
	"information of assistance in the commission or preparation or such acts".
	How far does Clause 2(2)(a) go? Would it apply to a book about the Easter Rising of 1916? Would it apply to Nelson Mandela's memoirs or old SWAPO pamphlets? In practice, it will impossible for a librarian to know whether even apparently innocuous material might serve as an indirect encouragement to an individual. As Universities UK states, Clause 2(2)(b) could cover even the most basic chemistry textbook, let alone more advanced material in subjects such as biology, physics and engineering. Even material in the fields of literature, political science and history could be argued to be useful to some degree in the hands of a potential terrorist.
	The provisions of this clause, as it is currently drafted, are so wide as to make it extremely difficult for a librarian to know whether making certain material available for loan would expose him to the risk of prosecution. As a result, librarians may withdraw from loan standard text as a result of fear of prosecution.
	As was pointed out by many noble Lords, Clause 2 lacks any requirement of intent. In a speech to the House of Commons on 26 October, the Home Secretary said:
	"The Bill extends the provisions to those who disseminate terrorist material, including on the internet, but makes clear that those who simply transmit material that does not reflect their views will not be caught".—[Official Report, Commons, 26/10/05; col. 334.]
	However, the Bill is not at all clear in this regard. It goes even further than Clause 1, flawed as it is, which provides a defence to an academic who publishes a statement that glorifies terrorism so long as he did not intend to encourage terrorism. Under Clause 2, if the publication is simply disseminated, the librarian would still be open to prosecution.
	Furthermore, the definition of "terrorist publication" is highly subjective. Under Clause 2(6), the definition is dependent on time and context, not merely on content. The same publication may therefore be deemed a terrorist publication in one instance, but not in another. Even more tellingly, as my noble friend Lady Williams pointed out, there is a significant reversal in the burden of proof, from the prosecution on to the defence, in requiring a defendant to establish the defences that are set out in subsections (8) and (9). Indeed, it may be impossible for libraries to avail themselves of some of the defences. Libraries could be deemed to have examined a publication through the act of cataloguing it and to have endorsed it by the act of selecting it for purchase or accepting it under legal deposit. As my noble friend also pointed out, these provisions could also put the British Library in statutory conflict with the British Library Act 1972 and Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. To vet and possibly exclude a number of items from its collection would put the British Library in breach of its obligations to collect a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland. Sadly, I do not have time to deal with the provisions of Clauses 3 and 6, but they, too, give rise to major concerns in the library and academic community.
	I shall make one final point. It is usual for a sponsoring department to help those who are affected by particular provisions. In this case, there was little good in the library community asking the DCMS for assistance. It was asked directly by the libraries to make representations to the Home Office. It failed to do so. The DCMS consulted neither the library community nor the academic community about these provisions. The libraries and the universities have had to make direct representations to the Home Office. That is simply not good enough.
	Legitimate intellectual debate and discourse must not be curtailed, nor must genuine research be undermined. This Bill must be amended.

Lord Eatwell: My Lords, there is much that is worth while in this Bill. I am sure that the whole House appreciates that the Government are struggling with the problem of how to deal with an entirely new situation that threatens the lives of the citizens of this island in a way that has never been experienced. Accordingly, those who oppose the measures in the Bill have a responsibility also to propose; that is, to propose alternative, evidence-based measures that might better achieve the Government's objectives—objectives that we all share.
	I hope to impose this discipline on myself in the remarks that follow, but first I must declare an interest as chairman of the board of the British Library, given that it is on library matters in general and the position of the British Library in particular that I propose to focus my remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has just referred to some of the items which I also will raise, and I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, spoke on these matters earlier. Unfortunately, I was not here at the time as I was in a meeting with the Home Secretary.
	I should preface my remarks by informing the House that the British Library has sought the advice of the Treasury Solicitor on the impact of this Bill on the legal standing and, hence, the statutory obligations of the British Library. In so far as my remarks embody legal assertions, they are derived, as best I can, from the advice of the Treasury Solicitor.
	A key theme of my speech will be the conflict between the provisions of this Bill on the one hand and the obligations imposed on the British Library by statute on the other. The statutory duties of the British Library are defined by the British Library Act 1972 and by the Copyright Act 1911, as amended by the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003.
	I will first deal with the statutory contradiction between Clause 2(1) of this Bill and the copyright/legal deposit issue. Clause 2(1), as is recognised in the Explanatory Notes, refers to the activities of a library: collecting material and making it available to the public. Indeed, this subsection, stripped of any terrorist implication, essentially describes exactly what the British Library does. Clause 2(1)(d) criminalises a person who,
	"provides a service to others that enables them to obtain, read, listen to or look at such a publication, or to acquire it by means of a gift, sale or loan".
	Clause 2(1)(f) criminalises anyone who,
	"has such a publication in his possession with a view to its becoming the subject of conduct falling within any of paragraphs (a) to (e)";
	in this case, any one who performs the functions of the British Library.
	The British Library is required by legal deposit legislation to receive all materials registered for copyright in the UK, whether produced in print or electronically, or by other means. In this respect, the British Library differs from other copyright libraries and academic libraries that have the right to choose what material they collect. The British Library has no choice. Therefore, it may be said to perform the tasks criminalised by Clauses 2(1)(d) and 2(1)(f) involuntarily. When my noble friend sums up, will she explain how the Government intend to resolve that contradiction between the Copyright Act, the Legal Deposit Libraries Act and this Bill?
	But the statutory demands on the British Library go much further. Section 1 of the British Library Act 1972 requires that the British Library maintains,
	"a comprehensive collection of books, manuscripts, periodicals, films and other recorded matter, whether printed or otherwise".
	In other words, it would be failure of the British Library's statutory obligations if it failed to collect terrorist material, particularly material published in the UK. But I would go further. As chairman of the British Library, I believe that it is the historic responsibility of the British Library to collect terrorist material. In 100 years' time, anyone trying to understand why my noble friend is putting forward the Bill, will, at the British Library, have access to material that will inform that understanding and, perhaps, evoke sympathy with the Government's position. Will my noble friend explain the Government's interpretation of the contradiction between the British Library Act 1972 and the current Bill?
	Given that the BL is required by statute to infringe Clause 2(1), what defence is possible within the terms of the Bill? Consider the defence offered by Clause 2(8). Given that the BL, when receiving any publication, will certainly catalogue it, will cataloguing, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked, constitute "examination" in terms of the Bill? Similarly, if the BL pursues its statutory duty and collects non-copyright terrorist material, clearly knowing it to be terrorist material, does that selection of such material constitute the term "endorsement" as used in Clause 2(9), as the Oxford English Dictionary would confirm? In neither case is the character of the defence clear.
	I am delighted to inform the House that the Home Secretary has agreed this evening to re-examine these clauses. But I would beg the Government to consider a simple solution to the problems that I have sketched. In Clause 1, a person is deemed to encourage terrorism if he intends to do so. I cannot for the life of me understand why prosecuting authorities are required by Clause 1 to show intent on the part of a person publishing a statement inducing terrorism, when, according to Clause 2, the prosecuting authorities are not required to demonstrate intent on the part of the hapless librarian. Instead, the burden of proof for the librarian is reversed—although the Home Secretary will look at these matters, as I have said.
	If the Government were only to introduce intent into Clause 2, all the statutory dilemmas to which I have referred would be resolved at a stroke. That would in no way weaken the anti-terrorist power of the Bill. Indeed, should there be by some misfortune, a rogue curator at the British Library who was intent on promoting terrorism by making terrorist publications available, such a person would be liable to prosecution under a new Clause 2 under the concept of intent. Is the Minister prepared to bring forward an amendment incorporating the concept of intent into Clause 2?
	While it is the statutory obligation of the British Library to collect materials and make them available, it does not do so irresponsibly. We have well-rehearsed procedures for managing sensitive material. Clause 3(2) provides for a two-day "take down" window in which a terrorist statement distributed electronically can be removed from a website. Will the Minister explain why this eminently sensible provision does not apply to printed material?
	The board of the British Library and our staff share the Government's repugnance at and concern about the very real threat that derives from terrorism. I entirely accept that, as far as the test of intent is concerned, the Home Office does not intend to inhibit in any way the operations of the British Library. The issues that I have raised are the unintended consequences of particular clauses in the Bill. I hope that the Government will agree that the changes I have proposed would eliminate those unintended consequences and strengthen the Bill.

Lord Judd: My Lords, the pain, the bereavement, the suffering and the danger speak for themselves. They represent an immense challenge to government. The Government have an unquestionable obligation to protect the human rights of everyone within their jurisdiction by maintaining defences against terrorism. To balance human rights and security is incredibly difficult. However, if in the end the package of measures is counter-productive, the Government will be failing in their duty. Therefore the task of Parliament is to scrutinise carefully what is proposed, to ensure the avoidance of the counter-productivity which could perhaps disastrously play into the hands of the extremists.
	Ultimately, the battle to contain terrorism can be won only in hearts and minds. If measures unnecessarily aggravate alienation and non-co-operation with those responsible for law and order, they will inevitably extend the potential recruiting grounds for the sinister and manipulative extremists. Just think of the young person in an immigrant community, under pressure from terrorists, if he is confronted with evidence used in propaganda saying that the traditional bastions of our system of justice are being removed because of the special problem of which he is a part. Does that win his heart or does it drive him to the manipulative terrorists?
	The greater the dangers and the more acute the provocation, the more important it is to stretch every sinew to act as far as is possible in accordance with the principles and conventions that have become the cornerstones of our judicial system—transparency, presumption of innocence, justice being seen to be done, and the rest.
	We are defending liberty—and are defending democracy as the guarantee of liberty. The police and security services are in the front line of that battle and they deserve all possible support; but police requests in themselves can never be sufficient justification for policy. We must take those requests very seriously, but it is Parliament that must evaluate and decide.
	Now a word on glorification—that, as has repeatedly been underlined in this debate, brings us immediately to the definition of terrorism. My noble friend Lord Stratford dealt well with it. He referred to Mandela and the ANC; he could have added the struggle for liberation in Mozambique. I am glad to say that I played a modest part in those causes. When the Home Secretary is tackled on these issues, I understand that his argument is that the times have now changed. He has used words on occasion which argued that nowhere in the world today can violence, including violence against property, be justified as a means of achieving change. I should remark that that has interesting significance for the future of foreign policy.
	But I spent three and a half years as the rapporteur for the Council of Europe on the struggle—the war—in Chechnya. I visited that war-torn country nine times. I do not believe that people should be fighting there. I believe that they could have a much stronger campaign without fighting. But faced with the brutality and the cruelty of the Russian war machine, can you really reach a situation in which you say that all those people involved in the struggle in Chechnya are terrorists? Of course what happened at Beslan, in the theatre in Moscow, in the stadium in Grozny, cannot possibly be justified. They were wicked acts, but there are many involved in the struggle who condemn those acts as much as we do, but would see military targets, for example, as legitimate.
	The issue is complex, and the definitions as they stand do not meet the complexity. I cannot say how much I welcome the agreement of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, to undertake a review of the definition of terrorism so that we can operate in a more convincing context. This is desperately urgent. Meanwhile, the proposed change in legislation which moves to recognise the importance of intention is obviously to be welcomed. Failure to follow this through on "recklessness" with a subjective provision, however, still needs careful consideration, not least in terms of our commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, and my noble friend Lord Eatwell have spoken about libraries and universities. I hope the noble Baroness will agree that analysis, evaluation and debate are central to the quality of democracy itself. The possible difficulties for libraries and universities are a symptom of a wider possible hazard in the Bill. We have to be careful about limiting ourselves to special exemptions rather than facing up to the essence of the issue.
	I am of course encouraged that we are now considering a length of detention of 28 days rather than 90. At the same time, I endorse the observations of my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws in this context. Whatever the period of detention, however, we must be certain that it is justified and can be seen to be justified as a proportionate response to perceived dangers and threats, as against its self-evidently still-greater restriction of liberty. Are the procedural safeguards, even with the welcome introduction of a High Court judge, sufficient? The presumption remains in favour of detention rather than liberty. A special case still has to be made for an extension of detention for less than seven days. In order to be compatible with Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which we are committed, would it not be necessary to amend the Terrorism Act 2000, to make provision for the presence both of the detainee and the legal representative, together with as much relevant material as possible, at any hearing for an extension?
	Of course there will have to be rational compromises to meet the requirements of both security and liberty. What matters is that those compromises can be as widely understood and justified as possible. They must invariably be seen to be rooted in a commitment to justice and liberty, from which we must demonstrate, convincingly and consistently, that we will never let the terrorists deflect us.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I will speak about one issue on the Bill: its effect on universities and academic freedom. I declare an interest: I have been an academic in a university for much of my life and remain an honorary and visiting fellow at the University of Sussex. I am also a member of the AUT.
	My concerns centre on Clauses 1, 2, 3 and 6, and the issues surrounding what is meant by the "glorification" of terrorism. Clause 1 deals with the dissemination of terrorist literature; Clause 2, the lending of literature that might relate to terrorism; Clause 3, the use of the Internet; and Clause 6, training in relation to terrorism.
	On Clause 1, the degree to which "glorification" remains so broad and vague a term—in spite of the introduction of the word "intent" in the other place—is worrying. It risks stifling academic debate and inquiry. Many noble Lords have already examined the definition, or lack of definition, of "glorification". The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, has already cited how, had this legislation already been on the statute book, his Harvard lecture, which was subsequently published in Prospect, in which he philosophically pitted Osama bin Laden against Mahatma Gandhi, might have caused him trouble after the legislation had been passed.
	The noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, cited the seminars on terrorism run at St Andrews University by Professor Paul Wilkinson. We have here in London, at King's College, a department of war studies. In Bradford we have a department of peace studies. All are rated excellent departments for their research capabilities and the contribution that they make to our understanding of terrorism: what makes terrorists tick and why they behave as they do. If we are to win the war against terrorism, it is vital that we have such an understanding.
	As part of their course, students are required to read, listen and watch texts and video clips that indeed glorify terrorism or could be seen to encourage it. The purpose and intent is certainly not to encourage terrorism or encourage the students to carry out such acts themselves. In the very act of using such materials in their course there is nevertheless the danger that academics might be reported as inciting such activity. They might decide that it was easier and safer for them not to use such texts or examples and to desist from playing devil's advocate with controversial views. If reported—yes, reported by a quirky student—they then have to go through the whole process of clearing their name and making it absolutely clear that they had no intent. They could run into considerable difficulties. We have seen exactly that happening in some of the claims made against teachers—of sexual harassment, for example—where they have been put on gardening leave, sometimes for years at a time, until they have been able to clear their name. The danger is that it is easier to withdraw the material because, if reported, teachers must go through the process of defending their teaching methods and what they have said.
	In Committee, we shall therefore seek assurances from the Government that legitimate study of controversial historical events—terrorist activities and their motivation—will not be curtailed as an unintended consequence. I emphasise "unintended". I recognise that this is not an intended consequence of the Government's desire to restrict terrorist activities.
	On Clause 2, my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby and the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, have both spoken at considerable length. As with Clause 1, we are concerned that it covers a potentially very wide range of material. In practice, it would be impossible for a librarian to know whether even apparently innocuous material might serve as an indirect encouragement to an individual. We are more concerned about the implications of this clause than about Clause 1 because of the current lack of any notion of "intent". As a result, it presents us with the anomaly that an academic publishing a statement glorifying terrorism might be safe as long as they did not intend to encourage terrorism, while anyone who disseminated that material would still be open to prosecution. I entirely endorse the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. I am delighted to hear that the Home Secretary has apparently agreed to consider the extension of "intent" to Clause 2. I hope that we can see some developments along those lines as the Bill develops.
	Clause 3 deals with the electronic dissemination of information from universities and libraries. Many of the same concerns arise as in Clause 2. In so far as the issue of intent is being extended to Clause2, it needs also to be considered for Clause 3.
	The provisions of Clause 6, which creates a new offence of providing training in skills relevant to terrorist activity, are also unacceptably wide. The skills covered include the making, handling or use of noxious substances; the use of any method or technique for doing anything capable of being done for the purposes of terrorism; and the design and adaptation for the purposes of terrorism of any method or technique for doing anything. In relation to noxious substances, subsection (7)(b) states that the definition shall include,
	"any other substance which is hazardous or noxious or which may be or becomes hazardous or noxious . . . in certain circumstances".
	All told, that could cover a vast range of everyday science materials, including fertiliser, hydrochloric acid and bleach.
	In addition, it is not clear why Clause 6(1)(b) states that a person commits a criminal offence if he,
	"suspects that a person receiving it intends to use the skills in which he is being instructed or trained"
	for terrorist ends; or, in assisting others in committing terrorist acts. In Clause 1, the grounds for committing an offence are knowing, believing or having reasonable grounds for belief. Again, we believe that the reference to suspicion—particularly in the context of an extremely wide range of material—makes this unworkable in practice and, potentially, counter-productive. The basic concern is that university teachers will routinely be exposed to the risk of prosecution for teaching a wide range of standard material in areas as wide as chemistry, physics, political science, history, engineering and defence studies and that, to avoid the risk of prosecution, university teachers may be unwilling to teach routine aspects of a wide range of subjects. Alternatively, the provisions of the Bill, particularly the reference to suspicion, will lead to widespread discrimination on grounds of religion, ethnicity and other unreliable grounds for determining possible terrorist intent. We are very worried about such issues. I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance.

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, there is no more important human right than the right to life. It is of course the duty of any government to seek to protect the public from terrorist atrocities such as the one on 7 July this year. I well understand that the Bill before us seeks to do just that. The Government have to ensure that sufficient resources and powers are available to the police and intelligence forces to enable them to carry out the important functions assigned to them in what is generally agreed to be a difficult and dangerous situation.
	In passing, I would say that, to people like me, who are old enough to remember the Second World War, the impression sometimes given that this is the most dangerous situation that we have ever faced seems a bit of an exaggeration. I lived with my family on the outskirts of London during the war. There were bombings by Nazi aircraft every night and daylight raids as well. It is sometimes forgotten that 36,000 people were killed in the London Blitz; many more were wounded and rendered homeless. Then, people slept in the Underground for safety, but were not always protected. There were at least two direct hits on Tubes; hundreds of people died. Neither should we forget the murderous activities of the IRA. True, they had no suicide bombers, but, on the other hand, the IRA kept their operatives alive because they wanted them to be alive to bomb again, and they did so. We need to keep the present dangers in perspective.
	The Government must strike the right balance, as several noble Lords have said. The public must be protected and, more important, must feel protected. At the same time, civil and political rights, democratic values and the right to free speech and expression—in other words, our essential freedoms—must also be protected, because those elements make up our way of life. Certain parts of the Bill need further examination from that standpoint.
	The other place has already made a highly publicised decision on one main issue: the length of time that a suspect may be detained without charge. There was a majority for 28 days as opposed to the 90 days that the Government recommended. I believe that that has settled the matter but would point out that even 28 days is a longer time than permitted in a number of western democracies, including Spain, France and Germany. I am glad that the decision has been made; the longer period of 90 days might well have had the result of alienating the Muslim community, whose support is necessary if good intelligence is to be obtained. I am pleased that the Government have decided not to seek to change that decision in your Lordships' House.
	Moreover, we need to find out what motivates young members of ethnic communities to indulge in such criminal acts. Those involved on 7 July appear to have been born in this country. They do not seem to have been particularly deprived or excluded and had had access to educational opportunities. So, what happened to them? Seeking to find out in no way excuses the appalling nature of what they did, nor does it come anywhere near "glorifying terrorism", one of the new offences in the Bill. Many believe that that clause in the Bill is not precise enough. What does it mean? It is, of course, already a criminal offence to encourage others to engage in terrorist violence. The expanded definition of terrorism and so-called glorification could mean that people who are absolutely against the murderous activities that are taking place will fear that expressions of legitimate views—about, say, the policies of ourselves and the United States in the Middle East—might make them vulnerable to prosecution.
	The broad scope of the offences could cover any reference to political violence anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, the world is full of repressive regimes, sometimes facing opposition from people who want greater freedom for themselves and their families. That leads me to the matter of proscribed organisations. There is, in Iran, an organisation that opposes the oppressive rule of the mullahs, particularly as far as women are concerned. Iran is a country where Sharia law is heavily applied. Teenage girls have been publicly executed for the so-called offence against chastity. It takes enormous courage to campaign for women's rights in such an environment. Yet I believe that the organisation to which some of those women belong is proscribed. I wonder why that is? There is a possibility that organisations whose activities are entirely non-violent could be caught by the Bill.
	I recognise the need to have strong laws to deal with the dangers that may now face us all, but I am anxious that we should not criminalise those who dislike the murderous activities of the terrorists as much as we do; they are basically our allies. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on some of those issues.

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port: My Lords, I live and work across the street from the Honourable Artillery Company, near the City of London. In 1992, it was subjected to an attack by the IRA. The damage was considerable; our windows, across the street, were blown in. I remember how, in response to the urgent advice of our political leaders of that time, we all kept our eyes and ears open for anything suspicious and that we lived through some scary days and weeks. This year, the Honourable Artillery Company became the site of the morgue where forensic experts dealt with the remains of the victims of the 7 July bombings. Some of those involved in that grim work came across the street, from time to time, to seek refuge from their distressing work in our little oasis.
	I can be in no doubt that terrorism has developed and mutated into something far more grim and ghastly during the 13 years separating those events. That is why I cannot place my entire confidence in a view of civil liberties that supposes that existing safeguards can deal adequately with present and emerging patterns of terror. I add the word "emerging", as this nefarious activity, however we define it—much reference has been made to the need for definition—is on the cusp of newly developing technologies. I suspect that it will keep spinning away from us as fast as any coping mechanism of law or law enforcement that we may devise.
	In seeking the balance so often referred to in the debate between our security and our civil liberties, I find myself, for the first time in my adult life, instinctively wanting the need for security to be put first, with safeguards for liberty being built in subsequently, as checks and balances. It was said earlier in the debate that increasing security was not best done by restricting civil liberties. I could turn that on its head fairly simply by saying that safeguarding civil liberties is not always best achieved by being lax on security. They clearly go hand in hand and will always require fine tuning. The innocence and diversity of the victims of the 7 July bombings on that bus and on those Tube trains and the prospect that others may follow them into abrupt and cruel death seem to demand that we treat security as being of the utmost importance.
	I am not happy with the loose phrasing or the vagueness of the idea of glorifying, praising or exalting terrorism. I forbear from repeating views that have been made well enough in the preceding part of the debate. Clearly, there is a lot of work to do to tighten the legislation to respond to the expressed needs of other Members. However, I want to repeat the view that I heard earlier from my noble friend Lord Parekh, who said that we should intensify our efforts to understand the views of those who resort to such extreme and radical action as we have been contemplating in this debate and that we should encourage the acquisition of an informed opinion about why some people are prepared to act in the ways that we so naturally abhor. I have heard with great interest the contributions about academic freedoms and the acquisition of the widest possible range of printed materials in libraries and so on, which seems to me to be absolutely essential for a full and free-ranging debate, and, indeed, for a deeper understanding of what it is that leads people to commit terrorist acts.
	So we must seek too to recognise the nuances and the subtleties in the thinking of Muslims at this time. The large majority of Muslims will certainly want to support those seeking to find effective ways of responding to terrorism. So it is bound to be counter-productive to conduct our discussion in such a way that we simply alienate those who should be our allies. Incidentally, it ought to be of interest to all of us to note the difference between the proposals in this Bill, with its clauses that criminalise incitement to terrorist activity, and those in the Bill that we recently discussed about incitement to religious hatred. In the case of one, the Government were accused by their opponents of pandering to Muslims in order to win their votes; in the case of the other, the Government are accused by Muslims of pandering to cheap popularism by villianising them.
	At the end of the day, terrorism will be defeated, as was said a little earlier by my noble friend Lord Judd, only when we have addressed its causes and when those who resort to sporadic and destructive violence and who are prepared to sacrifice their own life in such action feel that their voices are heard and understood. However hard that is for us to cope with intellectually or emotionally, at some stage we have got to engage with that. I suspect that we will need a few more terrorism Bills before we attain that happy issue out of all our afflictions, but we should never shut our eyes, in discussing the immediate needs in law of providing for the citizens of this land, to that longer and more distant scene. If the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, could end his consideration of this practical legislation by reminding us that this is not an abstract issue, I would suggest that keeping our eye on the more distant scene, where, with hearts and minds won, we may contemplate a happier existence, is not an abstract issue either.

Viscount Brookeborough: My Lords, it is a sad reflection that after 30 years of terrorism in Northern Ireland we are still introducing terrorism Bills and that we may have more Bills of this nature in the near future.
	I declare an interest. I am a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board. We have learnt in Northern Ireland that legislation alone cannot beat terrorism. There are two other vital factors: first, the application of the legislation and anti-terrorist measures by the security services, the police and other agencies—perhaps a national strategy; and, secondly, the reaction of communities that may be involved. I believe that we do not have a coherent national strategy; that is, joined-up thinking and operating between our different agencies and also between the Government and them. In England and Wales we have the Government, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, NIS, security services five and six, and Metropolitan Police, SO13 and SO18. In Scotland the position is not the same. We have the Scottish police and various other agencies which may come in from time to time. In Northern Ireland we have the Police Service of Northern Ireland and perhaps a different cocktail of agencies.
	Noble Lords will be aware that even in a small place like Northern Ireland, where some of these agencies were in the same buildings as each other, joined-up communication was not operating as it should have been until recently—post Patten perhaps. Now, in this case geographically we are talking in much larger terms. I assure noble Lords that within all this there are empires within empires and they are jealously guarding their independence from one another. I am not suggesting that they should be all joined together. Many of these have had different aims from the start. For instance, the police have a legal mandate to prevent crime and, where crime occurs, to investigate and bring people to justice. The aim of the security services is, perhaps, to protect the national interest. That includes political direction and, perhaps under certain circumstances, not charging certain people for certain things and allowing operations to run. So they do not exactly coincide with their aim.
	It is not a wonder that we are being asked to sanction prolonged detention without charge. The geographic spread, the lack of communication, co-operation and transparency, and, indeed, sometimes agencies misleading each other falls far short of a coherent national strategy. There is no one really pulling all this together. Instead, they protect their empires and ask for debatable measures, such as extension of detention.
	We have heard from the media about the time taken to analyse IT information and forensics. This is surely a matter of resources, as has been mentioned already. Quite clearly, if we doubled them we could do things twice as fast, and so on. As a result of this lack of co-ordination, the Government are asking for extended detention, to a greater extent than virtually any other comparable democracy. However, at the same time, the Government sometimes dismiss commonly used measures, such as continued interview after charge, and the admissibility of intercept evidence. All we hear from the Government is that these measures on their own will not eliminate terrorism.
	We know that, but a cocktail of measures inconveniences people on evil bent. The methods that terrorists have to use to circumvent such measures may bring them to our notice. Perhaps we can think of fish going up a river. They are unseen until they have to jump over or round an obstacle, thereby revealing themselves to the practised eye. We must consider that point.
	The second subject that I wish to discuss briefly is dealing with suspects and the effect on their communities. Hearts and minds are all important, as in Northern Ireland. However, this is an entirely different situation. First, we are dealing with suicide bombers who have little or no links with any command structure other than their original indoctrination. The devices and systems are low-tech and have little or no dependency on others during their operation. For instance, in Northern Ireland there were scouts, cover parties, drivers, getaway cars, and so on. All those people came from the community and were therefore actively involved.
	We have seen that in this case terrorists are able to prepare and operate without the knowledge of their families and close community. Indeed, those groups abhor and condemn such activities. Earlier the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked of the intellectual argument and justification for our actions and anti-terrorist measures with which I entirely agree. But I would go further. We have the most valuable commodity of all—the support of the community and the families. We must not jeopardise that; we do so at our peril. The Government must justify their actions in practical—not just intellectual—ways to maintain that support. That surely gives us unique opportunities.
	Your Lordships may think that I am na-ve but I have a couple of ideas, combinations of which and some of which the judicial and law enforcement agencies may regard as threatening to their traditional position. However, we are no longer dealing with the traditional. This is a new game. We should therefore use parallel thinking, or whatever—intelligent management and consider moving community support even higher up our agenda.
	Is there a case for taking the families and perhaps their close friends into our confidence at an earlier stage, after arrest? I think of restorative justice-type meetings and conferences even if the suspect does not co-operate. After all, under normal circumstances, people who are suspected of wanting to commit suicide are covered by the Mental Health Act, and there are case conferences involving exactly the agencies with whom those families might like to communicate. Political and religious indoctrination is a mental state and is a psychological problem with a political or religious base.
	Your Lordships may have noted that we have DPPs—district policing partnerships—in Northern Ireland. The forces of law and order must find novel ways, with government support, of becoming closer and closer to communities. DPPs or such like give the latter a stake and a forum for communication.
	I shall say no more, but I believe that regardless of how successful people believe they are at community relations, a lot more can and should be done. It will not defeat all terrorism, but it will mean that the entire society will be supportive. That is half way to succeeding in our aim to disrupt terrorism. I support the Bill with reservations.

Lord Ahmed: My Lords, I fully support the Government's review of existing anti-terrorism laws, although it is a difficult trade-off between liberty and security. The Bill is clearly a reaction to the heinous and deplorable crimes of 7 July, but proposed law must have at its root the intention to stop further criminal acts. It must not encourage further crime through marginalisation and the squeezing of the space within which legitimate political debate can be held.
	There are fundamental weaknesses in the proposed legislation, from its unclear definition of terrorism to the superfluous clauses on encouragement and glorification of terrorism—as has been mentioned by many of your Lordships—at home and abroad by individuals and organisations in Part 1, Clause 1, Part 2, Clause 21, and the extension of custody periods without charge in Clauses 23 and 24.
	The definition of terrorism in its ordinary usage is the use of violence to achieve an end. Violence is used occasionally by us through war to achieve an end—in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example. The workability of the definition turns entirely on the current political judgment of whether the end is justifiable.
	Many of us here marched in support of the ANC. As was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Stratford earlier, despite the ANC's use of violence, we felt that the end was justifiable. We did so even though many in the then Conservative government believed that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. But in so marching and supporting, we were not guilty of criminal offences. No one would today disagree that Nelson Mandela is an international inspiration and legitimate leader. Our government at that time got it wrong, and in years to come we may feel the same about Iraq. History can teach us salutary lessons.
	The reason why I give those examples is that they prove that one generation's terrorist is another generation's head of state. Names such as George Washington and Prime Minister Begin come to mind. Under the Bill, for the first time, we in Britain are trying to create a law with international application that will effectively determine the legitimacy or illegitimacy of political disputes in the world. It will deem non-state actors involved in military conflicts against armies of oppression as terrorists, despite the states that they oppose being engaged in rape, torture and other abuses of human rights and where the UN has consistently failed to implement its resolutions. In her reply, will my noble friend the Minister say whether resisting state terrorism could be deemed to be being involved in terrorism and whether sympathisers of those legitimate struggles would fall foul of the Bill? That should not be the effect of the Bill. Its aim should be to protect our citizens, not to alienate communities through suppressing debate. Will my noble friend tell us whether those parliamentarians who have supported the legitimate right of self-determination in Kashmir and Palestine, in accordance with UN resolutions, should be classed as sympathisers with terrorists, especially in the light of the statement made by the Prime Minister on his most recent visit to India, when he referred to the Kashmiri freedom fighters as terrorists?
	Many of your Lordships will be familiar with an organisation called Mujahideen al-Khalq, a proscribed organisation engaged in armed struggle against the Iranian Government. Indeed, many of us have been lobbied by it and some support its cause. The Bill would make such support criminal, as it would be deemed to be encouraging terrorists. Will those parliamentarians who have been supporting armed rebels from south Sudan engaged in a violent warfare with the Sudanese Government be classed as indirectly inciting terrorism? Do states engaging in terrorist activity also fall within the law? Will those individuals or groups who support such terrorist states be deemed to have committed criminal acts?
	This year, I stood in the cold while my granddaughter and her friends celebrated Guy Fawkes' Day on November 5th. I wonder whether we were engaged in glorifying terrorism. After all, Mr Fawkes tried to bring down the very place in which we now sit, the very heart of our democracy. However, year in and year out, we spend millions of pounds celebrating November 5th. The boundaries of when a social event, academic research, healthy political debate or even a media slip of the tongue become glorification are dangerously blurred. Noble Lords will remember the Prime Minister's wife making comments on the state of the Palestinians and the use of suicide bombing as a tool of war. Would Cherie Booth be guilty of a crime under the Bill?
	In this country, we may fundamentally disagree with certain political opinions, such as in the case of Hizb ut-Tahrir, but we surely all subscribe to the view that I may loathe what you say but will defend your right to say it. Gagging certain political views will only increase the sense of injustice felt by many young Muslims in this country, thus increasing frustration and animosity towards the state. At a time when we are working hard to encourage angry, disfranchised young men to come back into the political fold by engaging in democratic debate, we cannot also be squeezing the space and parameters of healthy debate. We cannot offer the hand of discussion and use the other hand to strangle political beliefs, however unsavoury they may be. There is an enormous leap between understanding why people become suicide bombers in Palestine and encouraging individuals to engage in such violence. The test should be that of intent.
	Finally, I turn to detention without charge. As a magistrate, I regularly heard applications for extension of custody time for further questioning. We heard the evidence and judged whether it would be appropriate for the police to detain further. To date, we have heard no evidence of a case where more than the current 14 days would have stopped a terrorist crime or led to the charge of a terrorist suspect. Your Lordships may be aware of the figures under terrorism legislation to date. Although 895 people have been arrested, only 23 have been charged. The 872 who have been released back into the community have largely remained unheard of. That will not be the case if they are held for 28 days.
	A fortnight away from your home, community, family and job may be forgiven; a month may not be. It will be those people we release without charge after a lengthy detention who will be fertile ground for breeding resentment and terror. Whatever the legislation, whatever the investment in policing, I remain to be convinced that being tough on terrorism without being tough on the causes of terrorism will yield long-lasting peace and community stability.

Baroness Goudie: My Lords, the very recent, appalling atrocities in Amman are yet another reminder, if any are needed, of the very real and present danger that terrorism represents to us all and the vital necessity of doing all that we reasonably can to combat this threat, but without adopting measures which in themselves may fuel it.
	It is natural that the bombings here in London on 7 July should have been a stimulus for legislative and other action. We must, however, also reflect on the recent events. None of us believes that the events of 7 July were a one-off. We were lucky—incredibly so—not to have had a repeat on 21 July, four months ago today. The threat of terrorism is not something which has been invented or exaggerated by the authorities or the media. It is real. It is very real. And the public know that it is very real and rightly see security as this Government's most important responsibility. A failure to take action or to take inadequate action would be a flagrant dereliction of duty. I therefore unhesitantly support the main thrust of the Bill.
	On the other hand, however, since 7 July we have also had the tragic shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an entirely innocent young man. We therefore also have to be concerned to protect the innocent, including those who may be suspected of terrorist activities. As always, a balance has to be struck. I shall be concerned at later stages of the Bill to examine whether these safeguards are sufficient. The encouragement of terrorism should be an offence. The inciters are at least as major a threat as the young suicide bombers whom they incite.
	We must, however, scrutinise closely the details and precision of the new offence created by Clause 1. The same applies to Clauses 2, 3 and 4 which relate to the dissemination of terrorism publications by Internet and other measures and means; to Clause 5, which concerns the preparation for terrorist acts; and to Clauses 6 to 8 on terrorist training and so forth. Part 2 of the Bill also merits close scrutiny, especially in relation to the expanded grounds of proscription detailed in Clause 21.
	I trust, however, that Clause 23 will not prove to be controversial. Detention for seven days at a time will be subject to judiciary scrutiny and will be for a maximum period of 28 days overall and will come to an end the moment the reason for the detention ceases. The police have made a good case: that the current 14 days maximum is inadequate, and the process is subject to appropriate safeguards. This is a question of degree and judgment, not absolutes and principles.
	Many people are in custody without having been convicted of anything and without their case having been anywhere near a jury. It is of course called the refusal of bail or the grant of bail on terms that cannot in practice be met. The remand in custody may be based solely on the prevention of future offences which are much less serious than terrorism. All this is accepted and may apply for extended periods, with little judicial scrutiny. True, there will have been the executive act of the subject being formally charged.
	It is right that there should be tighter controls and shorter time limits before this stage has been reached. But it is not right that there should be too little time for necessary inquiries to be conducted and the public safeguarded.
	A balance is being struck by the Government—in this and other respects—but, as I have indicated, there are some aspects of the Bill about which I remain to be persuaded and which, without further safeguards, may create more problems than they solve.

Lord Elton: My Lords, I always wonder whether the process of taking notes for five hours does not addle the brain, but I will do my best with what I have here.
	The detail of the Bill is complex, but the outline is simple. Sharp among the detail has been what the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has said, and of which I very much hope the Minister has taken careful note. For too long, the noble Baroness has been a solitary voice, drawing attention to matters of fundamental importance to this House and the country. In case she should have been thought by some who do not know her to be a fussbudget and a nervous person, she is, as many of your Lordships know, one of the bravest people in the country, and has demonstrated it on frequent occasions.
	It really is extraordinary that we should be complacent, not merely about the threats to the noble Baroness's person, to this building and to us, but also about the fact that somebody with known terrorist affinities of the first order should have a controlling interest in a commercial concern which has access to all the most sensitive security sites and processes in this country. The question is too embarrassing to answer, but I hope that the Minister will not spare her own blushes when she replies.
	The other point of detail which shone out brightly was made by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan. He drew your Lordships' attention, in a very eloquent, focused and pertinent way, to the victims of terrorism who are, in some cases, scandalously neglected. This may not fall within the scope of the Bill as drafted—it may not come within the scope of the Long Title—but it must surely come swiftly within the scope of government policy.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, drew our attention to the crucial nature of the shortage of resources in certain parts of our security and police organisations. That, too, is a matter of detail, but it is of very great importance. Something else she said struck me very much as relating to the outline within which this whole debate is taking place. There can be, she said, no peace without justice. Chiming with that was the focusing of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on the paramountcy of community relations.
	What is under attack is British society, which is very far from what it was when I was a child. I was brought up during the war, when our society was exceedingly cohesive because it was under very clear and visible physical attack, which threatened all of us. We had a coherent philosophy, a coherent religious attitude and coherent standards of behaviour which have all, since then, dissolved. So what we are defending now is much more amorphous and vague; it is much more difficult to attract the passionate loyalty of those who wish to defend it. A house that is divided against itself cannot stand, and unless something is done about our divided society, whatever we put in the Bill, we are in peril.
	Terrorists come into a weak community, with a very strong theology and philosophy of their own. They come upon people questioning the rights of what they do while having no questions themselves about the rights of what they do.
	My noble friend Lord Hurd said that intelligence, not legislation, was the best weapon. At present, intelligence is scanty. The intelligence we need is about the things that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark drew to our attention when he said that without condoning or excusing violence, we must understand and address its underlying causes.
	On community relations, the fact that there are, regrettably, a great many people who have been in this country for 30 or 40 years and have to bring their children and grandchildren along as interpreters, shows that we need to know more about our own society and change it. It is not entirely the fault of those who have been here so long, without absorbing even the language of the country of their adoption, that they have not done so. This needs to be addressed urgently but not within the perimeters of this Bill. As my noble friend Lady Park said, how is it that the Muslim extremists in this country have a loyalty to the world Islamic state which trumps loyalty to this country? The nations of this world have duties and obligations towards each other which are exactly parallel to the duties and obligations of their citizens to each other.
	It is a clear fact that we are one of the very richest nations in the world. There are countries which, by comparison, are destitute. That injustice will always breed violence. It goes outside the Long Title of this Bill, but it is the context in which we legislate. That is what I wish to remind your Lordships of. We have an obligation not merely to defend our state and our citizens, but to create a world in which we deserve the security and peace that the rest of the world could give us, if there were justice in it. It is not a popular thing to suggest that we have to do things that will cost money, at a time when our economy, I fear, is on the brink of recession. But in the long term it is in our own best interest. It is remarkable that the teaching to be found in the Good Book so often coincides with what is, in the long run, in our best interests. Our foreign policy and the work of DfID are as germane to this problem as are the contents of this Bill, the detail of which I shall be very interested to discuss with the noble Baroness, covering all sorts of recondite problems, including the question of whether the devolution of the warrant-giving powers of the Secretary of State to Scottish Ministers is a sensible piece of devolution. I have said enough to fill my seven minutes.

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe: My Lords, I declare an interest as chief executive of Universities UK, in drawing attention to the grave concerns of the academic and library communities about the scope of this Bill. At this late stage, and as the 40th speaker, inevitably many of the points I intended to make have been made, and with both passion and eloquence. I was much struck by the contributions of my noble friend Lord Parekh and of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, which chime very much with my own views.
	I support the thrust of what the Government seek to do by means of this Bill—as indeed so many other speakers in this debate have also said. But, as with many of them, I would urge caution. In the proper and necessary drive to protect national security, we must not allow the unintended consequences of broadly drafted legislation to undermine academic freedom, to create laws with which it is next to impossible to comply, and to frustrate the legitimate study of a wide range of subjects with possible relevance to terrorism—not least because to do so will seriously undermine our capacity to deal with the terrorist threat. Much has already been said about the provisions in Clause 1. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, gave us graphic examples of potential dangers. I agree that the provision remains too broad. I welcome the amendment made in the Commons requiring intent to be demonstrated. We are moving in the right direction, obviously, but concerns remain that a wide range of legitimate teaching and research might be caught by the new offence.
	Universities are further concerned that, under Clause 2, librarians will be required to assess whether any material available for loan might conceivably be interpreted as an encouragement to the preparation or commission of terrorist acts. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lord Eatwell urged us, from their direct experience and expertise, to be cautious. I was pleased to learn that my noble friend's representations to the Secretary of State appear to be bearing fruit. But Universities UK, together with the Society of College, National and University Libraries, is gravely concerned about the implications of the new criminal offence, not least because, rather than risk prosecution, librarians may simply withdraw a wide variety of material that could be interpreted as having relevance to terrorism. Furthermore, in Clause 2, unlike in Clause 1, there is no concept of intent.
	I should stress that not only am I concerned about teaching, research and the lending of publications in fields directly related to terrorism, but there are fears that potentially the broad range of the Bill could embrace a wide variety of fields including history, political science, theology, chemistry, biology and possibly others.
	Clause 6 relates to training for terrorism. Under subsection (3) a person commits an offence if they provide training in,
	"the making, handling or use of a noxious substance",
	if the person knows or suspects that the training may be used for terrorist purposes. The definition of "noxious substance" could include everything from household bleach to ricin.
	I welcome comments made by the Higher Education Minister, Bill Rammell, to the effect that the universities' concerns are unfounded. I hope that my noble friend the Minister, in responding to this debate, will be able to provide more detailed assurance because reassurance is urgently needed, as many contributions today have demonstrated. It appears that the Bill could result either in direct and intentional censorship on a potentially wide scale or, more probably, in self-censorship by academics and librarians fuelled by fear of prosecution under the extremely wide provisions of the Bill. I know that those are entirely unintended consequences but they are dangerous none the less.
	Those are the issues that this House will need to probe in some detail in Committee, but I hope that the Minister, in responding to the debate, will be able to explain to me—for I do not yet see it—why as the Bill stands, and as so many noble Lords have identified, the academic community has nothing to fear.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I concur almost entirely with the detailed critique of the Bill made from these Benches and indeed Cross-Bench, Conservative and Labour Benches. I propose for a few minutes to confine my remarks to terrorist motivation—or, as it is called, hearts and minds.
	If the real answer to terrorism was the legislation of unprecedented numbers of criminal offences and state powers, we would be the safest country on earth. As we have experienced, however, that path exemplifies the law of diminishing returns. So, too, police advice is far from conclusive. They are indeed the experts on the hardware of crime, but when it comes to the political and cultural context of terror, it is noble Lords, our colleagues in the Commons and civic leaders who have responsibility for considering and deciding.
	So how does one influence hearts and minds to minimise terrorist outrage? It is easy to forget that would-be terrorists, in terms of their ardour and sense of grievance, are not in a fixed state of mind; it waxes and wanes along with their sense of alienation and indignation. That, I suggest, will be closely related to what we in this place and those in the other place decide to do in the Bill.
	I am talking now of the Muslim communities, who feel particularly vulnerable and targeted by the provisions in this Bill.
	One damaging aspect of the panicky hysteria of too many tabloids, megaphoning their readers on how to stamp out terrorism, is to elide suspicion with guilt. The alleged terrorist is implicitly assumed to be guilty. That approach wholly overlooks the angst—sometimes, indeed, the hatred—generated among vulnerable communities by what they perceive as unfairness, for example in the form of false imprisonment. That then becomes, as others have said, a recruiting sergeant for the very thing the new law is designed to prevent.
	Although the comparison with the IRA at the height of its unscrupulous violence, very effectively made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and the present terrorism has its limits, they share a context. The IRA could only carry on the armed struggle with widespread support—or, at least, non-opposition—from within the Catholic community. It was essential, for both their self-justification and safety, that they had such support. This also, of course, frustrated British intelligence. It is because that support was slowly but surely eaten away by the effective and reconciling policies of successive British governments that we have climbed out of the abyss in Northern Ireland. In saying that, I do not underestimate continuing problems and difficulties.
	It seems to me completely misconceived to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Stratford, said, that the Bill should not be amended because, as he put it, he is not prepared to take risks with other people's safety. That is to evade the harsh reality that individual and collective freedoms and security are truly interdependent. Lowering legal standards, legal protections and due process may, I suppose, save some lives immediately, but at the cost of many more lives in future times, as home-grown terrorism is fuelled, fatally, by that ineffectual and, as it is perceived, unjust process.
	Lastly, I think this debate would lack an essential dimension if we overlooked the impact of British foreign policy on the problems of our own Muslim communities. There can be no shadow of doubt, I fear, that our engagement in Iraq, the inadequacy—as many see it—of our engagement with the Israel/ Palestine problem and, indeed, other areas of our foreign policy, have made a significant contribution to the problems that we are grappling with. We need to remember that, because if we do not, we will not get this complex balancing act correct.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, although I am very clear in my uncompromising hatred of acts of terror, my contribution this evening will be short and straightforward. Indeed, I was unsure that I would speak at all in this Second Reading debate, but the brutal murder of a woman police officer in Bradford last Friday tipped the balance for me. I appreciate that that killing was criminal and not a result of terrorism. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that at this time, in these days of extreme violence, the police and security services need our maximum support if they are to have the confidence to do their duty on our behalf.
	Expressions of my concern about terrorism are not new to your Lordships' House. On 14 September 2001 I spoke in the debate on international terrorism, just three days after the planes flew into the Twin Towers in New York. On 4 October 2001, I again spoke in the debate on terrorism. Then I spoke in the debate on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction on 24 September 2002. In addition, I have tabled Questions concerning terrorism on 7, 14 and 15 November 2001, 16 December 2002 and, much more recently, on 11 July 2005, four days after the London terrorist atrocities.
	Although I view human rights and civil liberties as fundamental and extremely important in our society, I have also argued that in the face of the desperate circumstances we are now experiencing, a new balance has to be established between human rights and civil liberties on the one hand and the security of this nation and its people on the other. In my view, no longer can we expect to enjoy our current provisions following the deaths of innocent citizens in London on 7 July this year.
	Following the recent debate in the other place where detaining suspects up to a maximum of 28 days was determined, terrorist bombs have exploded in Jordan and Pakistan, though fortunately not here in Britain. As is well known, the Government are in favour of a maximum of 90 days' detention. That reflects the seriousness with which the Government, the police and the security services see our situation, and I understand that this number of days has not been objected to by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, the "independent terrorism law watchdog", as he was described in the Times on 10 November. I shall return to the question of the number of days a suspect can be detained a little later.
	As many noble Lords can testify, although I sit on the Government Benches and by and large support Labour's policies, I can never be described as a Government serial supporter. From recollection, I have parted company with the Government on a range of issues: the promotion of homosexuality in schools; the reduction of the age of consent; fox hunting; elections to your Lordships' House and, more recently, on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. But on the issue of detention for 90 days, I fully support the Government because I have enough trust in the police and the security services to use such a measure responsibly. I believe that in some cases they need such a period to ensure that further atrocities like the one in London this year are more adequately avoided. In any event, the Government, in recognising that their first priority is to protect the people of this land while at the same time not wanting to see any unnecessary erosion of civil liberties and human rights, introduced into their legislation a sunset clause and made provision for suspects to appear in court every seven days for a review.
	Before coming to your Lordships' House, I was for some seven and a half years a magistrate. I learnt that the police do not always get it right, but neither do they always get it wrong. It is my view that if the police and the security services assess that in some cases they require 90 days to detain suspects, not only would it ensure that the British people will be protected to a much greater extent and our security much enhanced, but it would also give a much stronger guarantee that the police will get it right. That is because the time available for investigation would be more appropriate—and all this to be monitored every seven days in a court of law. If that was not enough, the legislation was to fall in 12 months, and no doubt would not be re-enacted if it did not work or there was found to be abuse.
	Therefore, in spite of what my noble friend on the Front Bench has said, in the interests of the people we serve I give notice that if, during the future progress of this Bill through your Lordships' House there is an amendment to restore the 90-day detention period, I shall support it.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I hope that the Government will pay particular attention to the speech this afternoon by my noble friend Lady Cox. I agree with the noble Lord that she has done more than anyone else in your Lordships' House to warn of the growing danger that militant Islamism poses to western society and the wider world.
	Her warnings are well documented and go back in the official record to well before 9/11, at least to her contribution on the gracious Speech of 18 November 1999. On that occasion she exposed Islamist activities in Sudan, the Caucasus, Dagestan and Chechnya. She also drew attention to the threat that violent Islamism already posed to this country, by quoting the militant leaders Abu Hamza and Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, speaking thus a few days previously in London:
	"We declare that we will never rest until we establish the Khilafah, that is an Islamic State for all Muslims worldwide, which will be a shield behind which Muslims can protect themselves and from behind which they can fight the enemies of Allah".—[Official Report, 18/11/99; col. 100.]
	That sort of talk does not endear one to the jihad. I for one was not at all surprised when her next major speech here, on 12 January 2000, was jammed. I had had the interesting pleasure of paying an undercover visit to the Soviet Union with my noble friend before the wall came down. We were both familiar with the kind of warnings one receives when one antagonises large and evil organisations.
	My noble friend referred today to the extraordinary complacency with which our police, security services and Palace authorities reacted to the incident by trying to pretend that her speech had been jammed by a faulty microphone, even when no such faulty microphone could be discovered. Disquieted by this, we also raised questions—as she mentioned—about a report in the Sunday Times on 30 July 2000. This revealed that a Mr Salah Idris, whose factory outside Khartoum was destroyed by US cruise missiles after being linked to Osama bin Laden, had a substantial shareholding in IES Digital Systems, a UK company supplying high-tech surveillance and security management to the Palace of Westminster, New Scotland Yard, the Royal Courts of Justice, some of our nuclear power stations, several of our Armed Forces establishments, Canary Wharf and British Airways, Texaco and other blue-chip companies.
	After much toing and froing, our security services confirmed that this was so and obligingly revealed that Mr Idris had increased his shareholding to 75 per cent. However, and this is the astonishing point, they suggested that we had no need to worry, because Mr Idris,
	"does not have any day-to-day involvement in the running of the company".
	Your Lordships can relax.
	For a statement that reveals the chasm between our security services, police and bureaucracy on the one hand, and the real world on the other, I submit that that must just about take the biscuit. If you own 75 per cent of a company, you single-handedly fix the remuneration of the directors, can personally hire and fire them and can change the company's memorandum and articles of association at will. Also, you do not presumably increase your shareholding from 25 per cent in 2000 to 75 per cent a year later—after 9/11—unless you are pretty interested in what the company is up to.
	This sort of story makes some of us reluctant to believe the police when they say that they need the power to lock people up for 90 days without charge. At least, it makes one nervous.
	I very much hope that the Minister will address herself seriously to the questions raised by my noble friend Lady Cox, particularly as to whether terrorists are using their money to buy into our national infrastructure, with the aim of destroying our economy and security from within.
	The Bill is largely a laudable attempt to arm ourselves as best we can against the new evil of Islamist terrorism. It introduces new offences and gives the police and our security services wider powers. I wish it well, especially in the improved form in which it will no doubt leave your Lordships' House. But we are unlikely to get rid of this new menace through the powers taken in the Bill, even when added to the considerable powers already granted to the state. We are also unlikely to succeed in bombing the Islamists out of existence. They are by now far too numerous and diffusely spread throughout our western societies and across the globe. It looks as though the bombs may be coming our way for some time yet.
	We need to consider an additional tactic if we are eventually to prevail. We must somehow encourage an honest debate among Muslims as to the true nature and purpose of their religion. To do that we will have to give tremendous support to those Muslims who believe that Islamist violence is in breach of the Koran. These are deep and difficult waters. One problem we westerners face when we consider Islam is that it is both a religion and a political system, and the penalty for deviation from it is death. Islamism is also a movement for world domination, as was Soviet communism. But, although no one believed much in the Soviet system after about 1950—it was held together by fear—these modern Islamists do very much believe in their mission, even to the extent of blowing themselves up in what they fervently believe to be the service of God.
	A few very brave Muslims are beginning to take on this challenge. I recommend a brief article in the Spectator at the end of July this year by Dr Patrick Sookdeo, entitled The Myth of Moderate Islam, in which he sets out some of the uncomfortable parameters of the debate. For instance, he disabuses those of us who used to think that Islam is a basically peaceful religion. Sookdeo points out that nearly all the peaceful verses in the Koran were written before 622, when Mohammed moved to Medina. He also explains the accepted rule of "abrogation", which means that wherever contradictions are found in the Koran it is the later verses which hold sway. I am sure this is all very basic stuff to many of your Lordships who have been interested in Islam for many years, but if we are going to encourage debate among Muslims many more of us must know at least something of their religion and its history.
	Dr Sookdeo is Director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. In his article he points to other Islamic scholars who are courageously starting to open up this whole debate. He ends by suggesting some gradual steps forward, some of which are included in the Bill but which I do not have time to cover today. However, the article certainly opened my eyes, so I have put a copy of it in your Lordships' Library. I commend it to the Minister.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority with specific responsibility for overseeing the work of the Met in respect of counter-terrorism.
	Last month, I and the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey—who is not in his place today following the terrible road accident in which he was involved; we all wish him well for his recovery—attended on behalf of your Lordships a conference in Moscow on international terrorism. We were greeted there by a senior representative of the Russian Duma, who welcomed the United Kingdom to the "modern world" as far as terrorism was concerned—forgetting the history, which was referred to earlier, of the Birmingham bombings, or even back 400 years to Guy Fawkes.
	But the important point about that welcome to the modern world was the recognition of the changing nature of terrorism. There is a difference between the terrorism we face today and the terrorism that was faced 10 or more years ago—and that difference is that the objective of the terrorists is not to achieve a political end, a specific outcome of a nature which can be determined by political means. This means that it is not possible, even were it desirable, to negotiate one's way out of terrorism. Furthermore, mass killing is in itself an objective. That is a very different situation from the one in which terrorists were acting to achieve a political objective and where mass killing might alienate those who made the decision.
	The third key difference is the willingness, indeed the desire, to commit suicide as part of a terrorist atrocity. That again is something very different, because the terrorists we have faced in the past wanted to escape; they wanted to live to perpetrate further acts. It makes the investigation that much more difficult—along with, of course, the handling of potential terrorists.
	I am glad that a number of your Lordships have referred to what happened in London on 7 July: 56 dead, 300 hospitalised, and thousands of body parts left at the scenes. The terrifying thing about what happened that day is that it could have been a great deal worse. Indeed, all the prior assessments as to what that kind of incident might have led to suggested it would be worse.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, said the police have not made a case for more than 14 days. I disagree with his conclusion for a number of clear reasons. I am conscious that, following the 7/7 bombings, there was a raid on a property in Yorkshire, the alleged bomb factory—or rather, as I do not know whether one should still call it "alleged", the bomb factory. The police entering the property came across tubs of suppurating gloop. I have seen the videos. I have seen the bubbles forming on the surface of the material. It took two weeks for there to be safe access to the property, during which there was a constant risk that the whole street would be blown away had things gone wrong. It took a further six weeks to complete the examination of the property. Had there been arrests in that case, with the two weeks ticking—or even the 28 days—that would not have been sufficient time to collect evidence from that property.
	In another case, the police seized from one property 650 gigabytes of computer material. Much of that was heavily encrypted. The best code-breaking experts in the country take an extremely long time to process that amount of material. Again, it is impossible to see how two weeks or 28 days would be sufficient to get to the bottom of the material contained there.
	Above all else, though, because of the changing nature of the terrorism we are talking about, there is a need to intervene earlier because of the risks of getting it wrong, and of people slipping through the net and being able to carry out the acts they are planning. The lines of inquiry—in one case, involving 27 overseas jurisdictions—mean that being at a stage where one can intervene safely with enough knowledge to do so is much more difficult than it has been in the past. With regard to the London bombings, 25,000 CCTV tapes have had to be reviewed. There are hundreds of documents in Arabic, and there are insufficient translations.
	Why did we end up with the proposal for 90 days? The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, through his assessment of the material he was provided with, came to the conclusion that 90 days was an appropriate length of time to allow suspects to be held, subject to judicial review of various sorts, before charge. The police's professional judgment was that 90 days was the appropriate time.
	We all rely on professional judgments of one sort or another; for example, when we visit a physician. We have heard today a number of professional judgments from legal experts, QCs and lawyers. Here we had the professional judgment of the police. Now, I am not trying to weigh the relative merits of an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police against a learned QC and say which is the better in terms of professional judgments. I am quite clear, though, that we should listen to the judgment of the police, and take it extremely seriously. This is not a scientific matter, just as it is not a scientific matter for the lawyers who tell us that, in their professional judgment, something is wrong. It is a judgment; a professional best estimate. That is what the police provided the Government with, which is why the Government initially came forward with the 90-day view.
	Various noble Lords have speculated about what may happen if different periods of time are put before this House. I do not yet know whether that will happen. Moving from 14 days to 28 days is an important step in the right direction, but it clearly falls short, by quite a long way, of what was the professional judgment of the police who are involved in these cases.
	I have also heard it said that one of the alternative solutions is much greater investment—that if, for example, you were to invest in much more intensive surveillance of terrorist suspects, this risk would perhaps go away. The reality is that a group of individuals will have 200 close contacts. It may have 2,000 contacts in a wider network. To maintain proper, 24/7 surveillance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, said, requires teams of perhaps 10 people. Three teams have to cover 24 hours, perhaps with back-up staff to assess the information that they collect. To cover that kind of number of people would require a force engaged just in surveillance of twice the size of the entire Metropolitan Police service. The cost of that, I suspect, would be rather more than we could afford. It would be several billion pounds.
	I close by commending some of the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. If we take the measures in the Bill before us, whether amended or otherwise, we must do so in the knowledge that they are only one part of combating terrorism. At the same time, we must address the long-term issues which provide a flow of young people who are prepared to become suicide bombers; for example, what converts a normal adherent of Islam into somebody who might be prepared to act as a suicide bomber? To do that, we have to address the long-term issues that are regarded as matters of grievance by the Muslim community around the world, be it in the Middle East, Kashmir or Chechnya. Unless those grievances are removed, the message that they receive will still seem to have validity. At the same time, in the measures that we take here, we must act proportionately and clearly. To do so, we must explain what we are doing and why we are doing it.
	I believe that the measures in the Bill, whether the 28-day detention period is amended or not, are proportionate. They are certainly appropriate. If we explain them properly and use them wisely, they will be part of an effective contribution to dealing with international terrorism.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, we have now passed the gap in the speakers' list, so the end of this long but interesting debate is at last in sight. I start by summing up our position. The vote in the House of Commons to limit detention without charge to 28 days rather than 90 days has removed the most controversial single issue from your Lordships' House. Our preference was to leave the limit at 14 days, but we voted for 28 days in the House of Commons, and we will stick to that in your Lordships' House. I recognise that a number of government Back-Benchers wish to reverse this position, and they will no doubt put down amendments on which we will have a debate in due course. However, I do not wish to deal with that matter tonight, because there are other matters on which we will wish to see the Bill amended.
	We welcome fully many parts of the Bill. This includes Clause 5, on acts preparatory to terrorism; it includes Clauses 9 to 12, on radioactive material and nuclear sites; and it includes a number of more detailed provisions.
	I regret that the Bill does not permit intercept evidence to be used in court. Where intercept evidence would prove guilt and where that evidence could be used in court without a threat to national security, it should be so used. We had a full debate about this on Friday during consideration of the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and I shall not go into that again tonight, but it is not impossible to reconcile national security with the ability to use some intercepts in trials. We will no doubt come back to that matter in Committee.
	I turn to those clauses where there is a need for amendment. A number of substantial amendments are needed to make the Bill acceptable. I start with Clause 1, which creates the crime of "Encouragement of terrorism". We certainly accept the principle that it should be a criminal offence, but that clause as it now stands needs to be improved in three ways.
	First, we believe that the person in question should be convicted only if he or she intended to encourage terrorism. The Government have modified the original test by amendments introduced on Report in the House of Commons, but they have not gone far enough. The Bill now retains the test of recklessness as an alternative to intent. If the obvious message of a statement is that terrorism in some form or other is a good thing, surely it is easy to draw an inference of intention. But if the statement says less than that, I see no reason why it should be an offence without clear evidence of intent. I do not think that it is useful or desirable, therefore, to include a recklessness test at all, and it is doubly undesirable if, as the Government propose, that test is objective rather than subjective—that is, the defendant does not have to realise that he or she was being reckless. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Plant, on that.
	Secondly, regarding the glorification of terrorism, I agree entirely with the criticisms made by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, the noble and learned Lords, Lord Lloyd of Berwick and Lord Morris of Aberavon, and several other speakers. I believe that these provisions are completely unnecessary. Glorification of terrorism is, under the Bill, an offence if, and only if, it is likely to lead hearers of the statement to infer that they should emulate the terrorist acts which are being glorified. That, in any ordinary meaning, would plainly be encouragement of terrorism. References to glorification add nothing and increase the complications of the Bill, which is already drafted in a way that is impossible for ordinary readers to understand. I believe that the reference to glorification is included only to save the face of the Government because they promised in their manifesto to make glorification an offence—so the word had to appear somewhere in the Bill; although I note that "condone", which was also in the manifesto, does not appear.
	The third problem with Clause 1 is that it contains, as do Clauses 2 and 3, specific defences which have to be proved by the defendant. If offences depend on intent alone, it may be possible to remove those specific defences as being unnecessary. But if that is not the case, the burden of proof should be evidential only, as was the case with similar provisions in the Terrorism Act 2000; that is, once the defendant produces evidence to raise an issue, the prosecution must disprove that defence beyond reasonable doubt. That was spelt out in Section 118 of the 2000 Act.
	Clause 2, relating to the "Dissemination of terrorist publications", is of particular concern to universities, libraries and the media. The definition of "terrorist publication" is extremely wide. I can think of a publication which indicated to its readers that they should use violence against their lawful government, which has been much glorified subsequently and which an oppressed minority could well regard as something that they should emulate. I refer, of course, to the Declaration of Independence. So there is a need to tighten the circumstances in which prosecutions can be brought.
	At present, the test of whether a publication is a "terrorist publication" depends on whether it is likely to be understood by the recipients as an encouragement of terrorism or as something useful for terrorism. Of course that could be something as simple as a London A to Z or a map of the Underground. Nothing whatever is said in Clause 2 about the intention of the provider of the publication, the person who will be charged with the offence. That is completely unacceptable. The Government's test for guilt is not what was in the mind of the defendant, but what might be in the mind of some unidentified persons who are, in all probability, unknown to the defendant.
	The offence must be limited to cases where the intention of the provider is to encourage or give assistance to terrorism. Unless offences are limited in this way, we will find that television news services will be reluctant to, for example, rebroadcast extracts from an Osama bin Laden tape which has been broadcast by Al-Jazeera to the rest of the world. Libraries will be reluctant to lend books to anyone if, in any circumstances, they might fall into the wrong hands and encourage them to assist terrorism. Universities will be inhibited in providing courses such as studies of the motivation of terrorists, as the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, pointed out. I agree on this issue with the noble Baronesses, Lady Carnegy of Lour and Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, and the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and my noble friends Lady Williams of Crosby, Lady Sharp of Guildford, Lord Carlile of Berriew and Lord Clement-Jones.
	The effect of the Bill will be to place severe restrictions on legitimate teaching by universities, lending by libraries and reporting by the media. I do not believe that the Government intend any of this, but they must amend the Bill. It is not enough to say that the Director of Public Prosecutions would not authorise a prosecution. That would not prevent the chilling effect of the law as it would stand if this Bill were enacted. Clause 6 on training for terrorism also creates serious problems for universities which provide training courses in fields such as chemistry.
	Clause 3 contains what I can only describe as an extraordinary provision. The extraordinariness of it has hardly been recognised, even today. A policeman can serve a notice on an Internet service provider because, in his opinion, it is transmitting a terrorist-related statement. If the service provider does not block that statement within two working days, it will be charged with a serious criminal offence.
	The blocking of websites is a favourite weapon of authoritarian states. It happens regularly in China, Saudi Arabia and other oppressive states. Yet we are here saying that a policeman—no doubt it would not be a bobby on the beat, but we do not say how senior they have to be—can simply take a decision to block a statement on the Internet. The service provider, of course, will have little or no interest in defending the case, and will not dispute the notice.
	I accept that there will indeed be a need for websites which promote terrorism to be blocked. The interference with freedom of expression which this involves, however, will need to be justified in each case. It is therefore essential that the notice must be authorised by a judge who is satisfied that the police have shown grounds justifying the blocking of the website or statement. There must also be a right, when it has been blocked, to apply for a revocation of the notice.
	A difficult issue arises out of Clause 17, which gives the United Kingdom courts jurisdiction over terrorist offences committed by anyone anywhere in the world, whether or not the perpetrators or victims have any connection with the United Kingdom. That raises what I might call the "ANC issue". What happens if the act falls within the definition of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, but is an act of economic sabotage against an oppressive government? It is not an adequate answer to say "Oh well, we can rely on the need to obtain consent from the Attorney-General before the prosecution". I have heard it suggested that the jurisdiction should be limited to cases with UK connections. I am not sure that is adequate either. What happens with someone who has committed terrorist acts in a foreign country, but cannot be extradited to that country because they might face torture or the death sentence? It is surely better to try that case in the United Kingdom than to allow that person to be released. So there is a need to find a formula which will stop a trial in the United Kingdom where terrorist acts are committed against an oppressive government and do not involve the deliberate killing of civilians.
	As my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford said, we also oppose Clause 21. If an organisation encourages terrorism, they can be proscribed under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000. I see no justification for giving an artificial meaning to what is otherwise a simple phrase. I would have to say that if the Declaration of Independence is a terrorist publication, then the Daughters of the American Revolution is a terrorist organisation.
	Let me therefore sum up. The Bill is one whose objectives are largely good, and we largely support them. However, it is a Bill with serious flaws. As with the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, it suffers from too rapid preparation and a lack of consultation. In particular, there is a need to ensure that new offences under the Bill will involve a deliberate intent to further terrorism. The Government's failure to foresee problems for universities and libraries in the Bill, and their failure to consult them, is frankly extraordinary, as has already been said. The blocking of websites must be brought under judicial control. Once again, it falls to your Lordships' House to correct defects in an important Bill. Given goodwill by the Government, we will co-operate to produce a Bill which deserves to be on the statute book. The Bill, as it stands, does not.

Lord Henley: My Lords, I begin with brief thanks to the Chief Whip for suggesting certain time limits that have at least ensured that the debate will finish at a more appropriate time than would otherwise be suggested by one with 47 or 48 speakers in it. I add an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Sharp and Lady Turner of Camden, for having missed their speeches. All would, I think, agree that amid a debate of such length one does have to leave at some point, albeit briefly.
	I start by stressing our broad support for the Bill as it now is. The noble Lord, Lord Stratford, put it well when he said that he regretted the necessity for the Bill but supported it. We can say the same; I would certainly agree with the noble Lord on that. However, when he went on to say to that he was now in favour of collective liberty as opposed to individual liberty, I found those remarks somewhat frightening, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of the Shaws.
	Having said that we broadly support the Bill, we feel that, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made clear, considerable improvements can be made to it. We will seek, in the spirit of consensus which the noble Baroness spoke of earlier, to effect a number of changes. We are in agreement with the Liberal Democrats on some of them; on others, I suspect that we might not be. We are certainly seeking a number of changes, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Kingsland when he opened the debate. We also feel that, as was stressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, and as, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, reminded us towards the end of the debate, a great many other issues need to be addressed in the fight against terrorism, other than merely the legislative process.
	Perhaps I may start with the question of consensus that the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, stressed at the beginning of the debate. The noble Baroness made much of it; dare I say that she laid it on with a trowel, as they say? Consensus was absolutely vital, consensus was very important to the Government and they sought consensus the whole way through the Bill. As, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, put it, that was somewhat rich in the light of what happened in another place. I remind the House of what happened. We will remember that in Committee the right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary appeared to withdraw all debate on his amendments on 90 days as he was going to table further amendments. On 7 November, about a week later, he said:
	"We do not accept that 28 days is an appropriate period . . . Later today I will be tabling an amendment to reduce the amount of time from 90 days, but not as low as 28 days . . . We are going to continue our conversations with backbench members of Parliament on all sides of the House, because there are a number of Conservatives and others, as well as people on the Labour side of the House, who believe that an amount of time greater than 28 and less than 90 is right".
	That was all very fine until, only a few minutes later, at his monthly press conference, the Prime Minister announced:
	"I believe that [the police] have put forward a compelling case, making it crystal clear that the need for a maximum of 90 days to hold suspects prior to charge is necessary . . . So I hope, even now, Parliament will not force a compromise on us. As Charles Clarke has just said a few moments ago, we will of course have to table amendments tonight since this is the last time to do so before Wednesday's debate, but we intend to use the time between now and Wednesday to try and get people to understand the importance of giving the police and our security services the powers they need to prevent terrorism in this country. I hope even now Parliament will not force a compromise on us".
	If we are to have comments of that sort, I fail to see how we are going to have consensus. I hope that the noble Baroness now comes before this House in a genuine spirit of consensus and that she will make it clear that she will listen to us to some extent and accept that although, as we have made clear, we support a large part of the Bill, we have considerable concerns about it and would like to send it back to another place greatly improved. We are of course grateful for the concessions that we have received so far—the sunset clause and the fact that the High Court judge will review the cases of those who are locked up for 28 days every seven days or so—but, as my noble friend Lord Kingsland and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made clear, there are further concessions, as examples of that consensus, that we are looking for that we would very much hope to get from the Government.
	I move on to Clause 1 and the various definitions of the new offence dealing with glorification, the test of recklessness and so on. I was glad that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, made it clear, particularly when referring to Clause 1(4), that he simply could not understand it. That makes it easier for me to say that I had very great difficulties in understanding that clause. Other noble Lords, many learned in the law and many not—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, my noble and learned friend, Lord Mayhew, the noble Lords, Lord Parekh and Lord Plant—all made it clear that they had problems with the definitions in Clause 1, particularly with subsections (4) and (5), and that we needed to consider them carefully, something that this House can and will do.
	The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made clear where he saw the need for three amendments to the clause. We shall certainly support him on some of them, but I am not sure that we would go as far as he wants on the question of recklessness. We would prefer to go back to the subjective test of recklessness, as originally set out in Caldwell, rather than have the objective test, which applied when that case was reversed in R v G. No doubt, we can deal with that matter in Committee and will argue it out carefully then.
	That brings me to a later clause—Clause 23 and the question of 28 days, 90 days, or whatever. At this stage, it would not be appropriate for me to argue the merits of either case, except to say that 28 days is about right and we do not accept the case for 90. I accept that many noble Lords on all sides of the House passionately believe in the case for 90 days. Many have considerable experience that I greatly respect—the noble Baronesses, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale and Lady Henig, and my noble friend Lady Park, for example. I hope that they would also agree that many of us passionately believe that 90 days is excessive and that the lesser figure of 28 was the compromise reached in the other place, with the support of my party. That is an alternative figure, and there is just as good a case for it.
	I hope that we can get away from the argument put forward, dare I suggest, by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who accused us of political opportunism in going for that period. I totally reject that and find it difficult to see how we can argue the case rationally if such accusations are made.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, will the noble Lord give me the rational case for 28 days?

Lord Henley: My Lords, the case has been put forward by a great many people already. To give just one example, many have said that a longer period of incarceration would act as the recruiting sergeant for terrorism. The issue will be argued again and again in Committee. I am sure that the noble Lord and others will table amendments to extend the period to 90 days. I am grateful for the Government's sake that they will abstain on that issue. We think that there is an equally good case for a lower figure, not because we are soft on terrorism, as the noble Lord would like to suggest. We must argue it out at the time, but the noble Lord cannot argue that we are merely pursuing it for reasons of political opportunism. I hope that he will be prepared to reject that idea.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, if the noble Lord is suggesting that more than 28 days will be a recruiting sergeant, where is the evidence that an extension to 28 days will not be a recruiting sergeant?

Lord Henley: My Lords, 28 days is much less. Some have argued for preserving the status quo of 14 days. We need to argue out the issue carefully in Committee.
	The point that I was trying to make is that it is unfair of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, to sully the argument by trying to suggest that it was merely political opportunism. I totally reject that and hope that the noble Lord will withdraw those comments when we debate the issues in Committee.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, if the noble Lord does not like the charge of political opportunism, presumably he will acknowledge that the attacks made by some members of the Conservative Party on the police for putting forward their professional judgment should also be condemned and deplored by the Conservative Party.

Lord Henley: My Lords, we on the Front Bench of the Conservative Party have made no attacks on the police. That issue has been raised by a number of noble Lords. Many of us feel that, although it is perfectly legitimate for the police to argue their case, as was made clear by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and others, it was possibly a step too far for them to get into active lobbying on the issue. I add the practical point that the Government might also recognise that the lobbying did not have the effect that they wanted, in that the vote in the Commons went the other way. Many people felt that the lobbying by the police was, as, I think, the noble Baroness put it, a step too far and took us slightly beyond what the police ought to do. There has been no criticism of the police from our Front Bench in either this House or another place.
	I turn briefly to Clauses 2 and 3 and the effect that they may have on universities and libraries. That has been dealt with in much greater detail by many of those with much greater expertise than me—my noble friend Lady Carnegy, the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, who is chief executive of Universities UK, the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, as chairman of the British Library, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby.
	I hope that it is not the case, as, I think, was suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that the Association of Librarians was not offered proper consultation with either the Home Office or the Home Secretary. It now seems that, only this afternoon, the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, had a meeting with the Home Secretary. We all listened carefully to what the noble Lord said and wondered how those points were to be dealt with by the Minister but, at the end of his interesting speech, we were assured that the Home Secretary had dealt with them all and said that they were all matters that should be considered.
	That raises a slightly wider question: was the Bill as well thought-out as it ought to have been if something of that sort crept in that needed rectification at this late stage? However, we are grateful that, at least, the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, as chairman of the British Library, managed to obtain an audience with the Home Secretary. It just seems a pity that some others did not receive any consultation with the Home Office earlier.
	I could go on, but we now want to hear the Minister deal with the Bill. I end by saying that, as I made clear at the beginning, although we support the basic thrust of the Bill as it now is, we will certainly seek amendment and a number of days in Committee—I am sure that the Government will be co-operative on that—to ensure that the Bill is properly scrutinised in the manner that this House normally manages.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, this has been a good debate, notwithstanding the last series of heated exchanges. I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in it. There has been not one unnecessary speech or one speech that has inappropriately indicated the comments made by others. Noble Lords will know that we cannot always say that honestly.
	I am also very grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate because of its tone. It has been very constructive and limited opportunity has been taken to make pure political points—although I noted that a temptation was extending from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that proved almost irresistible. On this occasion, he can perhaps be forgiven by me, although I do not know whether he will be forgiven by all.
	I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kingsland, Lord Henley, Lord McNally and Lord Goodhart, for what they all termed the broad support that they have given to the Bill. I understand the breadth of that support, but I also understand where we parted company. I entirely accept what the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said: that the security of the realm is the first duty of the Government.
	It is a duty that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and all Ministers take extremely seriously. And, as was made clear by my noble friend Lord Foulkes, it is a view taken very seriously by our Back Bench too. It is a burden which rests firmly on our shoulders, placed there by the people of this country as recently as May of this year.
	We have a duty to advocate that which we believe is right and fair and which will best meet the needs for the safety, security and civil liberties of the citizens of this country. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, for his kind advice but I say to him, in a manner which I hope is equally delicate to the way in which he gave his advice, that we understand that duty and the proper distinction which should be drawn between advice given by the police and the decisions made by Ministers on the basis of all the advice and information given.
	I also say to the noble Lord that independent judgment was applied when the decision was made by this Government. The Government found the evidence put forward by the police to be cogent and persuasive, and the logic of that was exemplified in the contribution of my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. He found the course adopted by the Government in respect of 90 days understandable and he gave voice to why he thought that decision was sound.
	As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark so rightly stated, it is of the utmost importance to maintain a sense of balance and proportionality. That balance is, as the right reverend Prelate said, difficult and proportionality is the key. We have to differentiate between the unpleasant and intolerant and those who would incite and promote terrorism. I reassure him that we understand that too.
	The challenge of terrorism is one that we all face, and, as my noble friend Lady Symons of Vernham Dean said, we have to face it with a sense of reality. I am therefore glad that my noble friend made such a powerful speech. She rightly directed our attention to the change which has taken place in the nature of terrorism: how it has mutated and how the threat has deepened and become less hierarchical, less structured and more diffuse and difficult. The rights and liberties of the majority, whose lives are put at threat, are of significance, and I give praise to my noble friend Lord Brennan for being one of the only voices who spoke solely for the victim.
	I also give voice to those on our Benches who strongly advocated the right to balance the liberties of the majority against the proper liberties of the individual; it is an important balance, but balance it is. My noble friend put this whole issue in the context of our international position, because the international situation has changed dramatically. The nature of the co-operation that we now have to undertake with others is significantly different from that which we have ever taken before because the threat has become international—it is not a home-grown threat which can be contained within these shores.
	Past approaches have to be reviewed and the procedural difficulties that are now presented to us are indeed real. I therefore endorse what my noble friend Lady Symons called the "realities". It was because of those realities that the detention of up to 90 days was considered a necessity.
	The comments of my noble friend were endorsed by a large number of speakers on our Benches: notably, and not least, by my noble friend Lady Ramsay with her huge experience of this issue, my noble friend Lady Henig, my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon, and my noble friends Lord Foulkes, Lord Harris, Lord Griffiths, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate and Lord Stratford, just to name a few.
	On the Liberal Democrat Benches, there was a very powerful endorsement in the form of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. He is our—this House's—independent voice. We rely on him for not only sagacity but care, in the way in which he reviews it. He has not failed us to date. Therefore, it is right that the Government, in coming to their view, took his independent view into consideration.
	In Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, we find support in the knowledge and concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. In as far as fault can be found with the logic that has been advanced, or the questions that have been raised about the logic, I respectfully suggest that that has not been well founded.
	The noble Lords, Lord Kingsland and Lord McNally, said that the police could do all this just with extra resources. That was put to DAC Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch, by the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 24 October. When asked, "Wouldn't resources be the solution?", his answer was clear: "No, it would not". He went on to say:
	"However many resources we had I do not think it would cut into the basic problem here, which is the sheer weight of material which we are routinely recovering in these cases. This has to be analysed at some point and then focused into an interview strategy and an investigation strategy set by the senior investigation officer. At some point one person has to be aware of what is emerging from all this data. It cannot just be a cavalry charge".
	A number of noble Lords highlighted the difficulty of what my noble friend Lady Hayman called "squaring the circle" between the need to act swiftly and early and the complexity of deciphering the information necessary to pursue these issues so as to do justice and prevent acts of terror. I was particularly interested in my noble friend's contribution and the interesting comments she made in her well structured speech about the use to which we should put Clause 5. It would be right to give credit to my noble friend and to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and the Newton committee. They, in their various guises, have promoted the creation of such an offence in Clause 5 for some considerable period. I say to them and to my noble friends Lord Soley and Lady Kennedy of The Shaws that the Government have not closed their mind to these possibilities.
	My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that we are happy to look at the merits of allowing post-charge interviews in a wider range of circumstances. However, this cannot be a substitute for a longer pre-charge detention period. Post-charge interviews can be of use only if it has been possible to charge and hold the person in custody. So I think it is unlikely that we will be able to reach a resolution of that wider issue in this Bill.
	My noble friend Lord Soley was particularly right to remind us that this is not internment and that we have come a long way since then. I was very reassured by the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that, having undertaken a comparative study of other jurisdictions, the protection given to our citizens through the legislation and that which we propose in this legislation is sound.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, exhorted us not to apply tunnel vision when we consider the acts of incitement and glorification. I assure him and other noble Lords who fear that that might be the case that we have not done so. A number of noble Lords raised that issue and we are, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Henley, approaching this with an appropriate element of openness. However, one cannot have it both ways. In relation to the issues that we shall come to shortly such as the role of academics and libraries, we have made it clear in all the speeches in the other place that the Bill would not adversely affect them. It is right that the specificity of those issues was not raised in the other place. They are now being raised, and we will look at them. As so many have said, including the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, my noble friend Lord Eatwell, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and my noble friend on the Back Bench—I hesitated there because first names come immediately to mind and that is more difficult—they know that this is not an intended consequence of the legislation.
	Noble Lords seek reassurance that we will do that which enables people to continue properly with their duties. My noble friends Lord Judd, Lord Ahmed and Lord Desai together with the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, have raised issues in relation to how communities will be affected. I assure all those noble Lords—particularly my noble friend Lord Parekh—that the Government would never want to clip the wings of such an attractive and lucid sting fly, who makes us think and whom we have found so essential in our philosophical debates, particularly those which have taken place in this House. We understand the contribution that our philosophers and our academics play.
	We have listened very carefully to the debate advanced on behalf of the libraries and universities. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary was pleased to discuss these issues with my noble friend Lord Eatwell, who I am sure raised all the issues about libraries and academics that any noble Lords would want to raise. If he did it with the passion with which he spoke tonight, I am relatively confident about that.
	It is not our intention to disable or to stifle proper debate in relation to that issue. My noble friend did have the advantage—I should clarify our current position. There is nothing in this Bill which would be a threat to innocent librarians performing activities in the vast majority of libraries in the United Kingdom. Clause 2 criminalises those who disseminate publications of two types: first, a publication that directly or indirectly encourages terrorism; and secondly a publication that is useful in the commission or preparation of terrorism, and could have been prepared only for that purpose.
	We have looked at the issues in relation to defences. We will look again at the defence in Clause 2(8), which a number of noble Lords say has given them problems. We will look at "endorsement" in Clause 2(8)(c), together with "examined" in Clause 2(8)(a). We will, if we can come to any resolution of those matters, come back to your Lordships before or no later than in Committee.
	Perhaps I may say a few words about the academic position. This issue was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, my noble friend Lord Parekh, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and my noble friend Lady Warwick. Those comments have also been added to by a further letter that I received while on the Front Bench from the Royal Society of Chemistry. I say to it, and to all those who have spoken, that we will seek to address those issues more fully when this matter comes back.
	There are certain issues I hope to deal with very rapidly. My noble friend Lord Ahmed asked me some questions about Kashmir. Perhaps I may reassure him that supporting or sympathising with a group—even one engaged in violence—is not criminalised by this Bill. Glorification of terrorism is caught by the Bill only if it is likely to incite others in acts of terrorism.
	My noble friend also dealt with issues in relation to the Terrorism Act. I have answers for all of these further issues. The time is now five minutes past ten and I would therefore invite your Lordships' indulgence and say that I will respond—save that I would like to make a specific response to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, because her issues were raised both by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch.
	Noble Lords, I hope, will understand why I cannot discuss specifically the individual cases or security issues, not least because some are still sub judice. However, I will study the noble Baroness's remarks very carefully, and if I can tell her anything beyond the information already given to her by Ministers, of course I will seek to do so and copy any letters to noble Lords who have commented.
	I would have liked to give a better answer, which I have, to the noble Lord, Lord Plant of Highland, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, on Clause 3 and allowing the blocking of websites. I have copious answers for all those. I invite noble Lords to allow me to give those on paper.
	This foreshadows an excellent Committee debate. I hope that we will continue to engage in this debate in a constructive way that will help us better to protect the people of our country, for whom we all care.
	On Question, Bill read a second time.

House adjourned at six minutes past ten o'clock.
	Monday, 21 November 2005.